Description
IT’S 2050, A CHANGED WORLD, and the River Rhone has flooded the town of Arles in France. Helen and Isha leave to join their daughter and eleven-month-old granddaughter, Ayo, in England.
In Calais, Isha, who has Ugandan-Asian ancestry, is told that new rules mean she will be immediately deported if she crosses the Channel. Faced with a terrible dilemma, Helen chooses to stay with her. Homeless and stateless, they seek refuge in a friend’s Swiss mountain chalet, but to get there, they must avoid main roads and immigration checkpoints. They decide to walk along the Via Francigena, an ancient pilgrimage route from Canterbury to
Rome, now also the preferred escape corridor for climate refugees fleeing north.
Jana resolves to follow them, but this is not a simple decision. The family communicates whenever and however they can while battling exhaustion, terror and the virulent xenophobia of people struggling to protect their increasingly scarce resources.
Their journey does not end in Switzerland …
290 pages 229 x 152mm
Future Imperfect is a thought-provoking and timely book that explores a not-too-distant future where environmental changes and social divisions
have reshaped society. The book raises important questions about vulnerability, scarcity of resources, social order, and resistance. It offers a warning of what could happen if we continue on our current path but also presents alternative actions and lifestyles. The book skilfully weaves
together themes of environmental change, the importance of trees, the consequences of greed, and the power of indigenous wisdom. It is not a dystopian novel but rather a story of endeavour. Future Imperfect will make you reflect on the choices we make today and the impact they will
have on our future.
– Kumi Naidoo, Human Rights Activist, International
Executive Director of Greenpeace International 2009-2015,
Secretary General of Amnesty International 2018-2020
Babette Gallard’s debut novel is a deep dive into a dystopian future. Forced by emotional bonds, our protagonists become outsiders in a world where swathes of humanity are excluded from society by its dictators. It is gripping, tender, intelligent and deeply political. It’s tone is set somewhere between Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry for the Future and Barbara Kingsolver’s Unsheltered. The book will undoubtedly become part of the canon in the rapidly emerging and uplifting genre of political cli-fi.
– Rehad Desai, Producer / Director of Miners Shot Down,
How to Steal a Country and Everything Must Fall
This is one of those rare books that becomes part of you. The stories and circumstances of the main characters draw you in quickly and resonate long after you’ve closed the covers. Future Imperfect shines a light into the corners of our everyday lives, and we recognise what we see as all too familiar. An engrossing read.
– Terry Shakinovsky, author of Knock on the Door and book reviewer