Antoine Volodine's 'Dondog': A Novel of Vengeance in a Post-Exotic Universe

Antoine Volodine's thirteenth novel, 'Dondog', published by Seuil in the Fiction & Cie collection, presents a revenge narrative within his signature post-exotic literary system. The protagonist, Dondog Balbaïan, akin to Edmond Dantès, returns from nothingness to unleash violence, only to discover vengeance is futile. The novel is set in a concentrationary world after the end, where time is frozen and ghosts endure nightmares. Volodine's work, often mislabeled as science fiction, is actually a political and poetic project rooted in the literature of extreme horror and insubordination. The author's invented 'post-exotism' draws on Victor Segalen's concept of exoticism, aiming for an 'imaginary exoticism' that confronts radical inhumanity. The novel is also a portrait of the artist as a beaten dog, where fiction becomes a survival strategy through murmuring tales in a universe of reclusion.