The First Century after Beatrice
1992 novel by Amin Maalouf
The First Century after Beatrice (French: Le Premier siècle après Béatrice) is a 1992 novel by the French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf. The story is set in a near future, where a pharmacological company markets, in the guise of a traditional folk remedy, a drug by which parents can choose to only have sons. The story is told from the first-person point of view of an entomologist. As the disastrous consequences of the skewed male/female birth ratio resulting from the drug multiply, he transitions from pondering and documenting them to organizing a body of scientists who attempt to reckon with the disaster.
Reception
John Tague of The Independent wrote: "Although Maalouf's image of the future is not a happy one, this parable never becomes portentous. His prose achieves an effortless lyricism which is always a pleasure to read - a reason, perhaps, for some little optimism in itself.
The public source identifies “The First Century after Beatrice” as 1992 novel by Amin Maalouf. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around First, Century and Beatrice.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3225881. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1992.
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This entry incorporates text from “The First Century after Beatrice” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.