Part 1
Black as the Sky (March-June 2021) 9

Part 2
They say life is just a dream (June 24–26, 2021) 189

Part 3
Song of Nothingness (after June 26, 2021) 305

Acknowledgements 473
Translator's Note 475

2020 Goncourt Prize Winner

The most talked about and sold of the Goncourt award-winning works
Amazing work written!

The novels French readers have chosen in unison during the pandemic
Over 1.1 million copies sold in France, translated and published in 45 countries worldwide.

“Fasten your seat belts, Hervé Le Tellier is about to take you on an amazing journey.

“A book you won’t want to put down until the last page!”
Leila Slimani, author of Sweet Song

“An elegant blend of science fiction and metaphysical mystery.

“A novel like a flight of imagination that lingers in your mind long after landing.”
Washington Post

“It unfolds with a high-concept plot like “Stranger Things” and “Black Mirror.”
A moving experiment in free will, fate, reality, and the very meaning of existence.

“It’s like the intersection of high-quality entertainment and serious literature.”
The New York Times


The 2020 Goncourt Prize-winning novel 『Anomalie』, which depicts an unprecedented incident in which a passenger plane between Paris and New York carrying identical doppelgangers experienced turbulence at the same point three months apart, has been published by Minumsa.
'Anomaly' means 'abnormal' or 'irregular', and is mainly used in meteorology or data science to mean 'abnormal phenomenon' or 'difference value'.
As in previous years, 『Anomaly』 was not announced as the winner of the Prix Goncourt at the Drouhin restaurant in Paris in the first week of November.
The announcement was postponed in solidarity with local bookstores that were unable to operate due to the COVID-19 lockdown.
The Goncourt Prize only has a prize money of 10 euros, but the winning book sells like hotcakes, so the Goncourt season is a big deal for French bookstores.
Hervé Le Tellier was honoured three weeks later than usual, via Zoom, due to social distancing guidelines.
This award was given to the author's eighth full-length novel, who has been writing works across genres including short stories, novels, plays, and poetry since 1991, and has also worked in various fields as a mathematician, linguist, science journalist, cartoonist, and regular guest on radio programs.


Hervé Le Tellier is a member of the experimental literary group 'Oullipo (Potential Literature Workshop)', which includes world-renowned writers such as Raymond Queneau, Georges Perec, Italo Calvino, and artists such as Marcel Duchamp, and has served as the group's president since 2019. 'Anomalie' is the first work by an Oullipo writer to win the Prix Goncourt, and is also a work that is like an homage to Oullipo by Le Tellier.
However, 『Anomaly』 is a novel in which Oulipo's characteristic difficulty does not act as a barrier.
The stories of these unlikely characters—a hitman, a novelist, a Nigerian musician, a young American girl, an airplane captain, an American lawyer, an aging architect and his young film editor—unfold independently, and through unprecedented science fiction situations, they confront the theme of human existence, unfolding at a rapid pace, much like a popular American drama.
Because of its literary value as well as its popularity, 『Anomaly』 recorded sales of over 1.1 million copies, far exceeding the average of 400,000 copies sold by Goncourt Prize winners.
In addition, 『Anomaly』 has been sold to 45 countries around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Spain, Israel, and Japan, and in Germany, it sold 100,000 copies in the week it was published, reaching number one on the Der Spiegel bestseller list, and in the United States, it also reached the New York Times bestseller list, becoming a "global phenomenon."


“I don’t know what you’re talking about.

“The same plane with the same passengers landed twice?”

They even calculated the probability that the coin would land on heads or tails and even stand upright.
But somewhere in the galaxy, a coin was thrown and stopped in mid-air!

In March 2021, an Air France flight from Paris to New York encounters unexpected turbulence, experiences a near-miss, and lands safely.
Passengers return to their daily lives, leaving behind memories filled with fear.
Except for one person, the French novelist Victor Mizell.
He returns to Paris, completes the manuscript of his novel, Anomaly, sends it to an editor, and then jumps to his death from a balcony.
And in June, three months after the flight in question, the same passenger plane encountered turbulence at the same point and flew to the same destination.
Carrying the same captain, crew, and passengers as doppelgangers… … .
The U.S. government, aware of this unprecedented incident, makes an emergency landing on a passenger plane at an air force base in New Jersey and secretly gathers scientists.
This brings into effect Protocol 42, one of the many protocols developed for national emergencies after 9/11 that has never been implemented and likely never will be.

A hitman living a double life behind the mask of a good father, a novelist who gained fame after committing suicide, a terminally ill airline captain, a Nigerian musician who hides his homosexuality, a lawyer who had his lover's baby within three months of each other, lovers whose love is about to expire, and a girl with a secret she can't tell anyone.
The March and June passengers, who live three months apart, come face to face with their own 'alter selves' and face the truth of their lives...


It invites you to confront yourself through various genres and characters.
A novel by Oulipo that unfolds to the rhythm of 'Mid'

"Anomaly" is divided into three parts: Part 1, which depicts the lives of each character before the problematic flight; Part 2, which depicts the three days the passengers detained in a hangar at a U.S. Air Force base experience as the U.S. government works with the scientific, religious, and world leaders to devise countermeasures after the unprecedented incident; and Part 3, which depicts the lives of the characters after a critical turning point and the society that accepts this incident.
The titles of each section, “Black as the Sky,” “They Say Life is Just a Dream,” and “Song of Nothingness,” are taken from poems by the poet Raymond Queneau.

The theme the author wants to convey through the absurd incident of the same plane with the same people landing twice due to an error in space and time is ultimately 'confronting oneself'.
What would it be like to encounter a third self, not even a mirror image? Hervé Le Tellier wanted people of all ages, races, and genders to confront him, resulting in a diverse cast of characters in his novels: hitmen, novelists, musicians, lawyers, whites and blacks, men and women, homosexuals, middle-aged and elderly, and minors.


Additionally, the author develops the story by assigning a genre appropriate to each character, which is also an oliphos-like device that can be said to be Le Tellier's identity.
In an interview with a media outlet, Hervé Le Tellier compared Anomali with Italo Calvino's (also an Oulipo writer) "One Winter Night a Traveler", a series of more than ten novels that are starting over, and said that he wrote not a genre novel but a "novel of genres" and that he hopes that readers will feel a sense of completeness while reading Anomali.
However, this so-called 'literary limitation', the solipsistic device, actually gives a lively rhythm to 'Anomaly', making it read like a 'medium'.
The novel, which opens with the story of Blake, a hitman for hire, begins as a mystery, then veers into chick lit when it depicts the push-and-pull romance between two mathematicians before they are called out to a national emergency, and then into a philosophical novel when it tells the story of characters confronting copies of themselves.



A beautiful ending that symbolizes the uncertain and fragile nature of human life.
And the secret hidden within it

The scenes where I confront another self with whom I share all my memories and experiences are the highlight of this novel.
Some feel pity for their own old age, others sink into self-loathing at the ugly secrets that are no longer theirs, and still others embrace another self, willingly embracing an identity they once denied.
The story of these people whose fates were completely changed over a period of three months makes us reflect on fate and acceptance of death.


The novel ends with a calligram that is like Oulipo's signature.
The author reportedly kept the original text a secret and asked translators from each country to create their own text, erasing and dismantling the letters like sand falling from an hourglass, leaving only the word 'the end'.
The message of 『Anomaly』, that our lives are full of uncertainty and also fragile, is contained in this final page.
And the sentence created by translator Lee Se-jin will remain a secret, just like the original text.



Praise poured in for this book

“How does society react when faced with the inexplicable?” The author attempts to answer this question with intelligence, sensitivity, and humor.
- Libreri Milpage

An adventure novel, a page-turner, and a work with bestseller potential.
Yet it is experimental and highly literary.
It has an experimental style comparable to Georges Perec's 'The Usage of Life'.
- Le Figaro magazine

A hilariously funny and devilishly intelligent novel.
Anomaly ultimately plays with our certainties to question the limits of language and literature.
An interesting experiment in literary thinking.
- Lumanite

『Anomaly』 is a world created through fiction, a fantastic literary machine that will take you high and make you fly.
- L

By making fate dance to a fantastic tune, with an indifferent attitude, Hervé Le Tellier takes the reader before the mirror.
What he seeks to explore by shaking the boundaries of reality is a confrontation with the self.
Masterful workmanship.
- Le Figaro Literaire

A fascinating thought experiment.
It's a sharp social comedy, but behind it lies a profound psychological question about individual freedom.
A novel that cannot be priced.
- Times Literary Supplement