Empire and Absence

Original title: L’empire et l’absence

Author: Strintz, Léo

Publication Date:

August 2020

Pages:

672

Original language and publisher

French | Actes Sud

Territories Handled

Netherlands, North America, Scandinavia

Genre

Debut Novel

Empire and Absence

Original title: L’empire et l’absence

Author: Strintz, Léo

Synopsis

(L’Inculte)

In the near future, there is a town where the inhabitants have signed up to the ‘serial’. Their lives are now filmed, directed, edited and formatted for television by the man known as ‘the King’. He is a demiurge, unhinged artist, megalomaniac and melancholic who exploits the lives of the town’s inhabitants to feed the great narrative that unfolds day after day.

Rebelling against this situation, Magnus Gansa strives to lead an entirely uneventful life without any social interaction. The solitary young man’s goal is to become invisible and thereby remain outside the ongoing serial. When Lo DeLilla, a former star of the serial, exhibits thousands of paintings made by a machine that reconstructs her mental images, Magnus sees it as a revolutionary act. What if  everyone could become the master of their own existence and imagination? This sets him off on a quest that will lead him to the secrets of this mysterious town and its king.