Péplum

Péplum is a novel written in French by the Belgian author Amélie Nothomb. It was first published in 1996 by Éditions Albin Michel. Presented as an autobiography, it is a futuristic work.

A young writer called A.N. is admitted to a hospital for a minor operation. When she wakes, she finds herself in an unfamiliar room, very different from her hospital room. There she meets Celsius, a mysterious scientist who tells her that 585 years have passed since her surgery and that the year is now 2580.

The book takes the form of a dialogue between the novelist of our time and the scientist from the future. They talk about a range of subjects: the scarcity of energy resources, political systems, classical authors, philosophy and what is called the great war of the twenty-second century.