The Floating City (Benjamin Berton's novel)

 

Paperback, illustrated by Mickaël Janvier.

Translated from French by David Marshall
340 pages, 10 € (shipping included).

 

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A homage to Jules Verne and Jack London, The Floating Island is a contemporary, ecological and scientific adventure novel that wonderfully captures the astonishment and dynamism of our childhood reading. It is the tenth novel by Benjamin Berton.

Freshly graduated in aquaculture, the young Léo Mars is hired to participate in the development of a pioneering clandestine city, built on a floating platform off the coast of Cape Verde. Financed by an Indian billionaire and designed by a prominent British architect, New Cape is a City-State based on the principles of the Blue Economy. Visionary and innovative, it offers 10,000 inhabitants, climate disaster victims, students, skilled workers, engineers and artists the opportunity to build the civilisation of the future on the sea. Life on New Cape, free from wars, terrorism and epidemics, offers a bold alternative to capitalism. But inventing the future is not as simple as it seems: between internal rivalries, brilliant inventions, hurricanes and invasions, the destiny of New Cape will not be exempt from difficulties, leading Leo Mars and his friends to discover that idealism has a cost.

 

                                                                                                                                          (Don't forget to activate English subtitles ↑)

Born in 1974 in Valenciennes (North of France), Benjamin Berton has published ten novels exploring different genres and settings. His first novel, Sauvageons (Gallimard), won the First Novel Goncourt Prize in 2000. The book is a social chronicle about the lives of northern teenagers between early sex, football and dreaming about future opportunities. With Classe Affaires, he explores the life of a young urban consultant during her first holiday break on the French Riviera. With Alain Delon Est une Star au Japon, he imagines the hilarious kidnapping of the most famous French film star by two teenage Otakus.

As time goes by, Benjamin Berton writes more about ecology, middle classes and family life. In le Nuage Radioactif, a paranoïd father and his young son try to escape a possible nuclear apocalypse. One of his most famous novels, La Chambre A Remonter le Temps, is set in Le Mans, where he lives with his 2 kids and wife for 15 years. He has been highly influenced by American and English authors such as JG Ballard, Martin Amis or John Updike. Also working as a rock critic, his last book, Dreamworld, is the first biography of the English band Television Personalities celebrating the sad and brilliant life of their leader Daniel Treacy.

Some of his books have been translated into German, Italian, Russian and a few other exotic langages

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ORIGINAL MUSIC OF THE NOVEL

Reading the book can be enhanced by listening to an original sound-track composed, written and performed by Stephen Jones (aka Babybird) between December 2020 and January 2021. It is directly inspired from episodes and adventures in the novel. The music (“L’Île Merveilleuse Le Disque”) is available for playback or download on the Bandcamp web site at Stephen Jones’s address: https://thestephenjones.bandcamp.com/
Or at the author’s address: https://benjaminberton.bandcamp.com/