Discussion d’Abel Quentin et Emma Chignara de Cracker l’époque, podcast des imaginaires politiques

In the context of the International Climate Action Day (24 October), Abel Quentin will talk with Emma Chignara about his novel Cabane.

Berkeley, 1973. Department of System Dynamics. Four young researchers are working on a report that will change their lives. The results from the IBM 360, also known as “Big Baby,” are clear: if industrial and population growth is not curbed, the world as we know it will collapse during the 21st century.

Within the team, each reacts according to their temperament: the American couple Mildred and Eugene Dundee decide to go public and raise the alarm; the Frenchman Paul Quérillot focuses on his career and dreams of living fast; and the enigmatic Johannes Gudsonn, the brilliant Norwegian mathematician? No one really knows. Some say he went mad.

From the lukewarm nonchalance of the 1970s to the hangover of the 2020s, Cabane is the story of a pursuit and a biting satire of a humanity dancing on the edge of the abyss.

Abel Quentin is a novelist and lawyer. After Sœur (nominated for the Prix Goncourt 2019) and Le Voyant d’Étampes (Prix de Flore 2021), Cabane is his third novel, which was also awarded the Prix des Libraires de Nancy–Le Point 2024. Le Voyant d’Étampes has also been translated into German (Der Seher von Étampes, Matthes & Seitz Berlin).

The evening will be moderated by Emma Chignara, cofounder (with Romain Huët) of Cracker l’époque, a podcast dedicated to political ideas. She also teaches at the University of Rennes 2 and at the Institut Catholique de Paris.

The discussion will be recorded and later published on the “Cracker l’époque” podcast.