Winner of the Grand Prix de littérature policière 2010
Rights sold to: Croatia (Hena Com), Turkey (Can)
2017. Mounir is a minor employee at the Institute of Science in Kazan, Russia. The day before he leaves for Mecca on a traditional Hajj pilgrimage, his workplace is blown up before his very eyes in an apocalyptic cloud of smoke. During his flight, he starts having convulsions, and dies shortly after arriving.
He has unwittingly brought the most virulent plague to the Holy City: Yersinia pestis, or the Black Death, which was believed to have disappeared in the Middle Ages.
The bacterium spreads among the pilgrims with uncontrollable speed. The dead count in their thousands. Amid the panic, a rumour surfaces: the Jews have poisoned the water in Mecca. This rumour crosses frontiers all the way to Jerusalem where the Palestinians and then the Israeli Arabs take retaliatory action against the Jews. Israel is fraught with unrest, Jerusalem falls.
This catastrophe devastates the international political scene, toppling individual fates in its wake: from the Egyptian Youssef Chedid, a volunteer doctor at the hospital in Mecca, to the Estonian Rein Laristel, freshly appointed as UN Secretary General; from the American Susan Rice, the United States Secretary of State facing the most perilous challenge of her career, to the Arab Israeli Commissioner Eli Bishara struggling to overcome the chaos; down to the beautiful Turkish Jew Ana Güler, torn between Istanbul and Jerusalem. The making of history is incarnated through these characters: from Kazan to Mecca, New York to Tel Aviv, Washington to Istanbul, and Sicily to Dubai. Their world - our world - will never be the same again. And what if it were true?
Lurching from hopes to illusions, and bomb attacks to reprisals, the fate of the Jewish state has constantly been at the heart of world conflicts for sixty-two years. Whether it is about a wake-up call or an act of conspiracy, this work of fiction sends a shiver down the spine.
Alexandra Schwartzbrod is a journalist for Libération. She lived in Jerusalem for almost three years during the last Intifada, working as correspondent for this major French daily newspaper. She drew on this experience to write the novel Balagan (2003, winner of the SNCF detective fiction prize). Since then she has written Petite mort (2005) and La cuve du Diable (2007).
2017. Mounir est un modeste employé de l’Institut scientifique de Kazan, en Russie. La veille de son départ pour La Mecque, où il doit accomplir le Hadj, le grand pélerinage, le site explose sous ses yeux dans une fumée de fin du monde. Dans l’avion, il est pris de convulsions et meurt peu après son arrivée.
À son insu, il a introduit dans la ville sainte le plus terrible des fléaux qu’on croyait disparu depuis le Moyen-Âge. Persina Yersis. La peste noire.
La bactérie se répand à une vitesse incontrôlable parmi les pélerins. Les morts se chiffrent par milliers. Dans la panique, la rumeur enfle : les juifs ont empoisonné l’eau de la Mecque. Et cette rumeur franchit les frontières, jusqu’à Jérusalem où les Palestiniens puis les Arabes d’Israël lancent des actions de représailles contre les Juifs. Israël s’embrase, Jérusalem tombe.
Cette catastrophe bouleverse l’échiquier politique international et fera basculer dans son sillage des destins individuels : de l’Égyptien Youssef Chahid, médecin volontaire à l’hôpital de La Mecque, à l’Estonien Rein Laristel, tout juste élu secretaire général de l’ONU ; de l’Américaine Susan Rice, secrétaire d’État des États-Unis confrontée au plus périlleux défi de sa carrière, au commissaire arabe israélien Eli Bishara en lutte contre le chaos ; jusqu’à la belle juive turque Ana Güler, déchirée entre Istanbul et Jérusalem. À travers eux, l’histoire s’incarne : de Kazan à La Mecque, de New-York à Tel Aviv, de Washington à Istanbul, de Catane à Dubaï. Leur monde, notre monde, ne sera plus jamais le même. Et si c’était vrai ?