ACROSS THE SAND by Benjamin PELLETIER (2009)

ACROSS THE SAND by Benjamin PELLETIER - Éditions de l’Olivier (96, Boulevard du Montparnasse, Paris) - 2009 - 163 pages – Softcover. When the narrator of this story arrives in Jeddah, he has just been hired by a major international hotel group to evaluate real estate investments in Saudi Arabia. He is rather confident and not without humor. And it takes that to deal with a world where money allows the most vain follies, such as the establishment of a city in the middle of the desert or the maintenance of a five-star hotel with no guests. Yet the absurdity of everyday life eventually erodes his enthusiasm. A dull anxiety gradually invades him, until it plunges him into painful loneliness. With this poignant and lucid story, Benjamin Pelletier uses literature to give a personal adventure the scope of an existential experience. Far from the lyrical dream, this remarkable book shows how the myth of the desert turns into a nightmare.