Dix légendes des Âges Sombres (Ten Legends from the Dark Ages)

I vegetate surrounded by ten thousand refugees from all over Europe and probably elsewhere too, with a meager food ration and half a litre of drinking water per day - when I can get them - in an average temperature of 45°C. Every night, under my piece of tarp, I hear fights, gunshots, women getting raped, people having their throat slit. Every day, morgue trucks come to collect the victims of the night, of malaria, cholera, Ebola and other exotic diseases, such as that seagull botulism that decimates them by the thousands, proves contagious by simple contact and deadly for weak or over-infected people - the majority here.

This collection of short stories about climate change paints a dark and tragic picture of a time not so far from our own (2060 and 2300): the "Dark Ages".

Endless heat waves, storms and torrential rain, water shortages, gradual disappearance of biodiversity as we know it and appearance of harmful endemic species... These phenomena, all due to climate disruption, have progressively led to the fragmentation of our society, replaced by enclaves in the countries of the North, especially Switzerland, a paradise for the richest individuals who live under protective domes.

Other climate refugees, known as ‘‘récos’’, are ostracized. And the struggle for survival brought out the worst in them. The Ten Legends from Dark Ages thus explore the different behaviours of Man in the face of climatic catastrophes: solidarity in the struggle for survival, or immorality and even criminality, insanity...

Press

“Chilling. The short stories that Jean-Marc Ligny has been giving us deal with the consequences of climate change and spare us nothing.”

Libération

“Text after text, Jean-Marc Ligny lets out a warning cry to which it is impossible to remain indifferent, and which reinforces the awareness of the climatic disaster to come (and even already there). Dispiriting yet mobilising.”

Le Bibliocosme