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“Heaven on Earth” by Fadi Zaghmout is a truly fascinating book capable of giving us important reflections on what would happen if we could be young forever
Heaven on Earth
Jordan, 2090. Aging has become a reversible phenomenon thanks to the incredible advances in biotechnology. Yet even in a world where eternal youth is a reality, there are still complications. Jamal Abdallah, brother of journalist Janna, protagonist of the story, has contributed to many of the medical advances that have lengthened humanity’s life expectancy in recent decades, and yet he himself has chosen to give up the possibility of eternal youth to die in a natural way. But because reproduction is tightly controlled, the opportunity to create a new life – following Jamal’s death – throws the entire Abdallah family into turmoil.
What if we could be young forever?
With “Heaven on Earth” Fadi Zaghmout leads us to reflect on the meaning of time and life, taking us to a universe where old age is not an inevitable human condition, but a choice, showing us what complications and possibilities all this can lead to. Being eternally young can in fact be seen as a blessing, but when this possibility is offered to all of humanity, how would our society change?
Fadi Zaghmout’s mind then imagines stringent birth controls, essential to avoid a population surplus, as well as the possibility of choosing to live at the age you prefer: because at that point we don’t go back to being children or start our lives all over again in this land returning babies? Not only that, in such an advanced and sophisticated society the control of DNA is almost total and so why not choose, for example, to exploit nanobots to increase sexual attraction towards one’s partner or give birth to someone dear to us but by now deceased by implanting her genetic makeup in one of her relatives, such as her daughter?
The sense of time and ties
Fadi Zaghmout’s novel leads us to really reflect on the importance of time and family ties, placing ourselves in a society where all these questions are not just hypothetical questions, but tangible and exploitable realities to the point of distorting and canceling any conception internal to the human being. Without a precise chronological order, our entire universe is destined to collapse, removing all limits to human imagination and pushing it to make ever more extreme choices for outside eyes, but which are seen by those who live them as whims at most.
In the face of all this, however, who are we? Who is our father, husband or wife? Who are our children and what does the passage of time mean?
A brilliant, profound and flowing book
“Heaven on Earth” is a brilliant book that will make you explore all these possibilities and more by putting us in the shoes of Janna Abdallah, a great Jordanian journalist of 2090 who, following the loss of her brother, will begin to rethink the idea of being a mother, changing every mechanism inside his family and showing us some of the thousands of possibilities derived from these technological innovations.
A novel that, in its brevity (just 179 pages), will be able to ask us all these questions without losing fluency and leading us readers, even more than the protagonist, to ask ourselves certain questions and questions. A truly fascinating novel for those looking for something to read under the umbrella and for those who want a reading capable of stimulating their mind more than ever
Published (and kindly given to me) by Future Fiction, the publishing house of Futurchia.
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