In 2017, Ouředník’s seventh title was published by Parisian publishing house Éditions Allia, also his first book written directly in French: La fin du monde n’aurait pas eu lieu. Both thematically and stylistically, it can be considered a sequel to Europeana. Ostensibly, this new book revolves around the life and thoughts of Gaspard Boisvert, ex-advisor to the dumbest US president of all time and advertising executive for the Pernod-Ricard company. Boisvert is obsessed with the end of the world, which may have already happened without us noticing, at least the – wafer-thin – plot suggests. But although at times it presents itself as a realistic novel, it soon becomes clear that the author is taking a run at all novel conventions. This book also deals with the limits of democracy, Adolf Hitler’s missing testicle, the comical nature of politically-correct language, religions, vegetarianism, Viagra and a whole lot more. Or is the author just kidding his reader?

In any case, La fin du monde n’aurait pas eu lieu is a fascinating, highly topical reading experience – and once again it all sounds curiously detached, mildly cynical and irresistibly funny. The book contains around 25,000 words, is divided into 111 chapters and 170 pages, has 12 diagrams or charts and one photograph, and has translations in several languages. In 2019 it made it through to the shortlist of the International Jan Michalski Prize for Literature.

“His ‘Europeana. Une brève histoire du XXe siècle’ (Allia, 2004), still widely read today, already took the form of an ironic and critical assessment of the most recent human adventures. He does it again, with the same brio and a very sure sense of effect. We see him patiently sharpening his arrows, bending his bow – and suddenly the line goes off and into the heart of the target. Jarry, Beckett, Michaux and Queneau, the four authors he has translated, mark out his own writing territory

In this book, the opposite is true. Has the author really written a farce, a satire? Yes, but no. Because he’s not joking.”

— Le Monde

“From these premises, Ouředník brilliantly links examples taken from the Bible and other myths, fanciful statistics, café du commerce dialogue and lame jokes. He compares the respective evils of Prozac and Viagra or the performances of the bloodthirsty dictators of the twentieth century.

Nothing escapes him about the pitfalls of language: worn-out stereotypes and the new ones that denounce them, tics and fashions. The Führer’s surname gives rise to onomastic digressions: if he had borne the name of his progenitor, Schicklgruber, “he who digs a gutter to drain the manure”, would he have had the same charismatic destiny? Even if, as the publisher suggests, it’s not out of the question that we’re simply being taken for a ride, it’s all so delightful that we’re delighted.”

— Le Temps

Translations