THE FUTURE | Catherine Leroux

READ JULY 2024

THE FUTURE |
Catherine Leroux

Translated from the French by Susan Ouriou
2023
Biblioasis

“… she thinks of the cities she has known. None like this one. None as honest, she realises. Continually monitored, restored, rejuvenated, the other cities perpetuate the fable of immutability: that human constructions are eternal. In Fort Détroit, that myth no longer exists. The impermanence of things, their fragility in the face of the elements, is on full display.”

— Catherine Leroux, The Future, 2023

We find ourselves in Fort Détroit, a familiar yet alien place. Never surrendered by settlers to the United States, its citizens still speak French as they grapple with pollution, poverty, racism. In this work of speculative fiction, Detroit’s notorious ruins are reimagined; Fort Détroit is a future city with an alternate past.

In the dystopian atmospheres of this remade city, we meet Gloria. She has moved into the ghostly house of her recently deceased daughter. As Gloria navigates her grief, she also begins to explore the unfamiliar spaces of this new city. With the guidance of her neighbours, she sets out to find her missing granddaughters. Not far from the banks of Fort Détroit’s Rivière Rouge in the woods of Parc Rouge, she discovers a community of lost children who have built their own strange and magical society.

The Future is written by French-Canadian author Catherine Leroux, translated from the French into English by Susan Ouriou, inspired by cities in decline. In these pages, you will meet “a group of feral murderous children, whose meditations on life are so gorgeous, and absurd, and perverse that they are poetry”, writes author Heather O’Neill. This “wild group of children show us a model for a new society where everyone’s dream life is equally important”. (CBC Books 2024).

Amidst the chaos and the haunted spaces of this dystopian future, community still thrives signalling the possibility for new beginnings even at the end-of-times. Poetically written, The Future opens possibilities for discussion around children and community, culture and language, racism, settler-colonialism, and the uncertain urban futures of the climate-changed city. According to its author, The Future ponders “how do we look towards the future, how do we go forward” (CBC Books 2024).

Further reading, listening, viewing

The Future by Catherine Leroux , Biblioasis, 2023

‘Heather O'Neill, championing The Future by Catherine Leroux, wins Canada Reads’, CBC Books, 2024