Mort d’un sage

At last, Lucius Murena has returned to the palace. His memory is still shaky, but the drugs Lemuria had been forcing on him are gradually wearing off, as are Nero’s doubts about his friend’s involvement in the plot against him. The secrecy surrounding the identity of the Hydra, that fearsome warrior, however, bewilders the emperor, who is plagued by increasingly frequent delusions that are slowly driving him to the brink of madness. The shadow of the conspiracy, which continues to loom over Rome, also contributes to Nero’s wavering sanity: as the noose tightens, he offers Tigellinus, his ambitious henchman, full powers.

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape but the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

After centuries of obscurantism and persecution, witches are making a loud and largely positive return to society. Witches find themselves at the heart of today’s most pressing debates, led by various ecological and feminist figures and movements. Just what is it, though, that makes a contemporary woman become, and freely identify herself as, a witch?

Eva Roussel takes us on a walk down her own path to sorcery.

The Larzac plateau in south-west France was the scene of a disturbance that began in 1971 and eventually involved tens of thousands of people. The reason for it was a government plan to evict local farmers in order to extend a nearby military camp—a plan that sparked a decade-long protest by people of all kinds throughout France.

Victory for the protesters in 1981 did not, however, put an end to their activism: for the next 30 years, a militant group fought for the redistribution of the land as well as forming an agricultural union and setting up networks to protect farmers—an early anti-globalization movement.

Thanks to this latterday “peasant revolt,” the Larzac plateau became a symbol of resistance that inspired several other movements and continues to resonate today in the context of the struggles for environmental protection, for rural regeneration, for “quick fix” farming techniques, and for organic food production.

Chic! It’s a great beach day for Ana Ana and the doudous! Tanning, swimming and beach games are on the agenda! But Fluffy finds the environment hostile: the sand is hot, the sun is blinding, the water is cold and there are too many insects in the tall grass. He’s decided he wants to go home. Fortunately, he can count on his cuddly friends to make his life easier and help him enjoy the beach.

The first-hand experience, told with biting humor, of two tyrannies—one political, the other parental—in Algeria between 1970 and 2000. Salim Zerrouki grew up in Algiers, in an unusual building within the complex built for the 1975 Mediterranean Games. At the time, Algeria was to all intents and purposes a dictatorship, and the Games were seen as an opportunity to display the country’s achievements to the rest of the world. The ultimate in modernity, the complex was designed by the internationally renowned Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who made it a personal rather than national statement.

In the story of his upbringing, which he tells with honesty, humility, and humor, the building in which Salim was born becomes a character in its own right, and his memories of childhood and adolescence combine to paint a personal, political, and spiritual portrait of a little-known and terrifying chapter in Algeria’s history.

A tough but touching and always amusing tale. A rare glimpse into a forgotten world.