Invasion of the Sea
Original title: L'Invasion de la mer (1904).
Parts of this novel (under the title Captain Hardizan) were serialized in The American Weekly (the Sunday Supplement to the Boston American newspaper) from August 6, 1905 to August 13, 1905. The first complete English translation was published by Wesleyan University Press in 2001.
Invasion of the Sea was written in 1904 when large-scale canal digging was very much a part of the political, economic, and military strategy of the world's imperial powers.
Instead of linking two seas, as existing canals (the Suez and the Panama) did, Verne proposed a canal that would create a sea in the heart of the Sahara Desert. The story raises a host of concerns – environmental, cultural, and political. The proposed sea threatens the nomadic way of life of those Islamic tribes living on the site, and they declare war. The ensuing struggle is finally resolved only by a cataclysmic natural event.
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne (1828–1905) was a French author who helped pioneer the science-fiction genre. He is best known for his novels A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869–1870), Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) and The Mysterious Island (1875).
Jules Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before navigable aircraft and practical submarines were invented, and before any means of space travel had been devised. Consequently he is often referred to as the "Father of science fiction", along with H. G. Wells. Verne is the second most translated author of all time, only behind Agatha Christie, with 4162 translations, according to Index Translationum. Some of his works have been made into films.
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