Vivre la fin du monde, survivre à l’apocalypse. Trois romans apocalyptiques, de la fiction à la réalité
Living the End of the World, Surviving the Apocalypse. Three Apocalyptic Novels, From Fiction to Reality

Author(s): Jean Bebdika
Subject(s): Literary Texts, Fiction, Studies of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: Science fiction; 2030s; Anthropocene; time crisis; survival
Summary/Abstract: In “L’Apocalypse de 2030”, “Chroniques de la fin du monde” and “La fin des temps”, three novels by French, American and Japanese authors respectively, the novelists try to hold up a mirror to readers of our world that has become a field of ruin, but they do not fail to warn that the crisis of the present is nothing compared to what awaits us in the decade of 2030. In this gruesome setting, the question of survival remains the major leitmotif of this apocalyptic corpus. By analysing these works under the scalpel of psychocriticism, the critic comes to the conclusion that the authors are taking a critical look at the catastrophic situation of the world, with both compassion and indignation. But beyond their essentially anxiety-provoking and presentist vein, apocalyptic fictions propose a rather anxiolytic framework, oriented towards the future and the conduct to be maintained in this ‘crisis of time’. The authors of apocalyptic literature, far from being “the horsemen of the apocalypse”, set themselves up as prophets of the days of doubt.

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