Structura Maxima

A homage to Italian “futurism”, a novel midway between the baroqueness of Caro and Jeunet films and the poetic fury of Miyazaki.

The structure is a breathtakingly dizzy world of girders and levels, where a civilisation, whose origins are lost in the mists of time, has evolved. Now this civilisation has reached its point of rupture. War is brewing between the Steam, the community that produces electricity from magma, and the Girders, who, in the name of their god, forbid the opening of the dome covering the city.

In this suffocating atmosphere, Victor Mégare and his son Jehan are looking for a different destiny. Victims of the Steam and the Girders, they are searching for the sources of this antagonism. What are the Girders protecting with their divine prohibitions? What goal are the Steam trying to achieve by encouraging the entire Structure to overturn old stability? And where are the answers to be found? Between light and shadow, in the steam of the furnaces or in the magnitude of the girders? Or are they to be found behind the scenes, on the other side of the dome wall?

Literary Prizes:

Structura Maxima is Olivier Paquet's début novel, first published in 2003. It was joint winner, with Les fables de l’Humpur by Pierre Bordage, of the Prix Imaginales des Lycéens.