$24.95
Today, for the first time in many years, Jean Raspail’s dystopian masterpiece, The Camp of the Saints, is once again available to an Anglophone public. To ensure you are among the first to receive a copy, pre-order now by following the links below.
A migrant fleet, a million strong, sets sail from Calcutta. Its destination: Europe. As the fleet advances, the continent is submerged by a torrent of words. Will the old nations of Europe resist the migrants or welcome them? Honor their past or embrace the radiant future? Open fire or open their hearts?
Enthusiasm, delusion, cowardice. And, finally, panic. The migrants make landfall
First published in 1973, Jean Raspail's The Camp of the Saints ranks among the great dystopian novels of the twentieth century. Long out of print in translation, it is often hailed as prophesizing the mass migrations of our own day. The present edition contains an introduction by the scholar of French political thought Nathan Pinkoski, the 2011 preface that Raspail wrote by way of final testament for the book, and an original translation by Ethan Rundell.
For the first time available in English after years of neglect, this edition will allow a new generation of readers to pose Raspail's questions for themselves and measure the distance we have come - or not come - since the book was first published over fifty years ago.
“The Camp of the Saints does not flatter; it does not console. It strips away illusions and forces us to see how quickly a civilization can collapse when it forgets to defend itself.”
“In the end, the work is not so much a polemic as an extended interrogation or question. It challenges the reader to imagine a West that would not only be able to halt such an invasion but also one that would be actively worthy of saving.”
“The Camp of the Saints is not really about migrants; it’s about us, and whether we peoples of the West, long paralyzed by the sentimental humanitarianism and civilizational self-hatred of a spiritually corrupt elite, still have the power to rewrite this tragic story.”
“Raspail is a writer keenly aware of the history of colonization—and decolonization. He believes that if one group is gaining confidence and projecting power, another must be losing its inheritance. This view is gaining broader acceptance across the West.”
“It reads like a war reporter's dispatch from the mouth of hell... Raspail writes with such energy, like a man possessed, that the book's 300 pages rush by.”
“The Camp of the Saints remains closely, horribly relevant to our dilemmas right now. This new translation could not be more timely, more fraught.”
“This book by Jean Raspail is the ever-fresh story of Cassandra. Before anyone else, Raspail foresaw the 'Great Replacement' of Europe's peoples by their counterparts from the Global South. Before anyone else, he understood that what was called immigration was in fact invasion. He said it, wrote it, foretold it. But Cassandra is never believed.”
Jean Raspail (1925-2020) was a French explorer, novelist, and travel writer. Best known for The Camp of the Saints, Raspail was the author of nearly forty books and the recipient, among other distinctions, of the Grand prix de littérature de l'Académie française, in recognition of his lifelong contribution to French literature.
Nathan Pinkoski is a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America and holds a DPhil in political theory from the University of Oxford.
Ethan Rundell is a translator, journalist, alumnus of UC, Berkeley and Paris' School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS). He has translated over a dozen books as well as scores of academic articles. After several years in France, he now lives in North Carolina.