The Post-Exotic Connection: Passage to Utopia

Antoine Volodine has been called utopian, ¹ but in what sense? His flights of fancy cannot be categorized among outmoded revolutionary notions, nor among any of the “new” contemporary utopias: technological (democracy via the web, Esperanto on the Internet), scientific (equality via cloning, perfection via the genome) recreational (vacation villages, urban entertainment centers, raves), artistic (total art, art transformed into life), or others. In Volodine’s work, utopia is inscribed in a discursive space that is complex and paradoxical. Established by the (utopian?) non-opposition of opposites, it juxtaposes a radical political credo and an absolute nihilism that rejects all faith in any imaginable political or religious solution. ² This utopia without hope annihilates all possibility of an ideal world, and projects the principle of futureless revolution into an imaginary and remote geography.