The First Century after Beatrice

The First Century after Beatrice (French: Le Premier siècle après Béatrice) is a 1992 novel by the French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf. The story is set in a near future, where a pharmacological company markets, in the guise of a traditional folk remedy, a drug by which parents can choose to only have sons. The story is told from the first-person point of view of an entomologist. As the disastrous consequences of the skewed male/female birth ratio resulting from the drug multiply, he transitions from pondering and documenting them to organizing a body of scientists who attempt to reckon with the disaster.

The First Century after Beatrice

First edition
Author	Amin Maalouf
Original title	Le Premier siècle après Béatrice
Translator	Dorothy S. Blair
Country	France Lebanon
Language	French
Publisher	Grasset
Publication date	1992
Published in English	1993
Pages	189
ISBN	2253097829

Reception

John Tague of The Independent wrote: "Although Maalouf's image of the future is not a happy one, this parable never becomes portentous. His prose achieves an effortless lyricism which is always a pleasure to read - a reason, perhaps, for some little optimism in itself. If someone is going to tell a story about the end of the world, we can glean some comfort from the fact that it is told in a voice as refined and delightful as Amin Maalouf's."[1]

See also

• 1992 in literature
• Contemporary French literature

References

1. Tague, John (1994-01-02). "The unlikely metamorphosis of the future". The Independent. Retrieved 2012-04-12.