Frühling der Barbaren

This slim novella, shortlisted for the Swiss Book Prize back in 2013, is another entry in the small roster of fictional works addressing the global financial crisis. In this case, the approach is to examine the dynamics of a group of ‘brash and self-confident’ London bankers gathered together for a wedding at a luxury resort in Tunisia.

You can see why this was a priority target for English translation – not just for its portrait of finance wankers (who are in danger of supplanting football hooligans as our most depressing exported stereotype), but also for its vision of the UK as being at the centre of global meltdown. By setting the action just slightly into the future, Lüscher allows himself to imagine some of the consequences show more of collapse, in terms which, post-Brexit, have become more feasible than ever.

In effect, what Preising was presenting me with here was a variation on the by-now familiar theme of ‘Where were you when Britain went bankrupt?’. Latterly, this genre had taken over from the earlier ‘Where were you on 9/11?’ […] Likewise, we all now vividly remember the moment when the baby-faced PM in his baby-blue silk tie – an unduly optimistic and frivolous choice in the circumstances, I always thought – commenced his speech with the words ‘In thirteen hundred and forty-five, when King Edward the Third told his Florentine bankers…’ Sure, it had far less visual impact than 9/11, but it's still seared on our collective memory.

The climax is a suitably Ballardian spiral into social breakdown and violence, all played out in the microcosm of this North African resort. Lüscher doesn't have Ballard's control or his flashes of genuine weirdness – but he does have a great hook, and the themes of financial disaster and Arab Spring give him plenty to work with. A bullish debut; analysts recommend buy. Warning: likes can go down as well as up. show less

This is a powerful little book that tells in a few (125) pages the imaginary story of a group of British tourists and a Swiss businessman and what could happen in the event of an economic collapse. A very interesting short novel.

Heerlijke satire in de beste traditie van Swift en Sterne. Deed me denken aan Houellebecq (Platform) en Kracht (Imperium). Aanrader, dus.

Un OVNI... une fable contemporaine? Une nouvelle de troisième degré? Une lecture agréable en fait, mais qui à le goût d'une ébauche. Et il est probable que J. Lüscher a trouvé la bonne distance.