review
‘Adrift’ is a brilliant literary debut by a seriously talented new writer. Set in a dystopian near-future after the climate crisis on Earth has concluded, Amira Ben Saoud’s novel is a must-read for fans of Margaret Atwood and Stranger Things.
The novel presents a fractured and severely compromised form of human civilization, where people live in isolated settlements that have little contact with one another. Some occasionally venture out of the settlement in search of a better life elsewhere, but they are never heard of again.
The novel’s protagonist is a woman in her early thirties who earns her living by impersonating women who are missing from her clients’ lives. She has assumed the roles of a string of absent daughters, wives and girlfriends over the years and is so used to playing the part of other people that she can no longer remember her own name. At the beginning of the novel, she is in the process of transitioning from a waif-like, unkempt girl called Ona, to a well-groomed woman called Emma. She becomes so obsessed with trying to understand the complex relationship between her client and his missing partner, Emma, that her own boyfriend breaks up with her.
There have been numerous ominous signs that things are not right in the settlement where the protagonist lives, including the sudden appearance of huge fissures in the ground. Then one day people mysteriously start floating into the air. No one knows how or why certain people are able to float. When the young people in the community start to engage in increasingly risky floating games above a local ravine, leading to a series of deaths, there are extensive protests that threaten the precarious social order.
As the novel concludes, the protagonist finally finds out her own name, but this does not help her to resolve all her uncertainties about her identity. A pair of lorry drivers whose job is to deliver essential supplies to the remote settlements witness the tiny figure of the narrator floating up into the sky, soaring away from the settlement over the surrounding forest. They are incredulous and try desperately to rationalize what they have seen, only to feel profoundly relieved when this troublesome location is subsequently removed from their delivery route – the inhabitants presumably being left to fend for themselves by the unnamed and unknowable authorities that control the social order. ‘Adrift’ is an exceptional novel: quirky, thought-provoking and a delight to read.
Find out more: https://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/en/buch/amira-ben-saoud-schweben-9783552075207-t-5512
All recommendations from Spring 2025