Announcing the Albertine Collection, a partnership between Editions du Seuil and Villa Albertine, highlighting literary, personal, or social explorations of the contemporary world.
All texts featured in the collection are written by Villa Albertine residents, who enriched their works during their immersive stays in the United States.
Launched in 2021 by the French Embassy in the United States, Villa Albertine supports cultural exchanges between the United States, France, and beyond. Present in 10 American cities, the institutions offers 50+ residencies each year for artists, thinkers, and creators across all disciplines as well as grants, resources, and incubator programs for professionals in the cultural sphere.
The Albertine Collection serves as part of Villa Albertine’s wider editorial offerings, which includes States, an English-language online and print magazine.
Explore the latest books featured in the Albertine Collection below.
Vallée du silicium by Alain Damasio
See more
Science-fiction writer Alain Damasio was irresistibly drawn to Silicon Valley, at the heart of the new technologies that shape our lives. In Vallée du silicium, he observes and takes it in, being jostled by a reality he didn’t anticipate. Readers follow his deep reflections on how technology shapes us: how it penetrates and controls our bodies; how it supplants and reinvents our intelligence; and how it deforms and reconstructs our relationship to the world, to others, and to ourselves. From the headquarters of Apple, “the Mecca of the Mac,” to San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, Alain Damasio examines the metaverse, the generalization of AI, and the burgeoning empire of autonomous cars, to draw out a political reading of the times and let us understand the new era that await us.
About the Author
Alain Damasio is the author of numerous science fiction novels and short stories, including La Horde du Contrevent (La Volte, 2004, Grand prix de l’Imaginaire 2006), which has sold 500,000 copies, and Les Furtifs (La Volte, 2019, Prix du Meilleur livre Lire and Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire).
Photo credit: (c) Alain Damasio