French Literature Reviews - 2026

É. B. Henriet, L'Uchronie
Novel and Narrative Prose

Critical dossier by Acta Fabula, "Making and Remaking History" (June 2011, Vol. 12, no. 6): "With 'Ifs' & Conditional Tense: How History is Rewritten" by B. Boulay

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Éric B. Henriet, L'Uchronie

Paris: Klincksieck, coll. "50 questions", 2009.

232 p.

• ISBN (EAN 13): 9782252037102
• 16€

Publisher's overview:

What if Pontius Pilate had pardoned Jesus? What if Hitler had died in a car accident in 1930? What if Napoleon had won at Waterloo? The subsequent course of world history would have been entirely different... Unlike other speculative fiction genres where inventiveness knows no bounds, uchronia involves rewriting history plausibly, starting from a specific point where actual events could have taken a different turn.
Uchronia (from the negative prefix u + chronos, time) is, as its founder Charles Renouvier put it, a "utopia applied to history," meaning history "logically reconstructed as it might have been." Written by France's leading specialist in the field, this book offers definitions, descriptions, and comparisons that capture all the nuances of a fascinating genre where imagination frequently intersects with philosophical meditation and historical reflection.

The concept of uchronia, or alternative history, occupies a space within speculative fiction by grounding its counterfactual scenarios in historical causality. Unlike broader forms of fantasy, the genre relies on the application of the 'what if' premise, requiring authors to maintain logical consistency when imagining how a single divergence from established events might alter the trajectory of the world. This tradition, which traces its intellectual roots back to the nineteenth-century writings of Charles Renouvier, invites a dialogue between creative imagination and the analytical study of historical processes.

Uchronia, derived from the negative prefix u and chronos, is defined by Charles Renouvier as a utopia applied to history, or history logically reconstructed as it might have been. The genre involves rewriting history plausibly, starting from a specific point where actual events could have taken a different turn. Readers interested in the evolution of counterfactual historical writing and the theoretical underpinnings of the genre may find this analysis relevant.

See Laurent Lemire's article, "What if Jesus had been pardoned?" on Bibliobs