Antoine Volodine: a grandiose finale in eleven works

A fireworks display. An orgy of words serving dark, strange stories, told by characters with improbable names, killers, magicians, hybrid creatures, in apocalypse settings, deserts, ruined cities, streets littered with carcasses, carrion. Welcome to the world of Antoine Volodine.

At the twilight of his life, the writer offers his last score to an audience that has followed him since 1985, a grandiose finale presented in eleven works published by eleven publishers between August 26 and 28. Eleven volumes bearing a name, Infernus Iohannes, pseudonym of a collective of authors of which Volodine claims to be the spokesperson.

In the middle of the literary season with more than 450 titles on offer, while books are doing poorly, is such a performance reasonable? How was it possible? Should we not rather see the panache of an extraordinary device which is also the testament of an immense writer? To try to understand, we asked…