Messianic Fiction in Antoine Volodine's Nuclear Catastrophe Novel Minor Angels
In Specters of Marx, Derrida suggests that a non-revolutionary — ‘spectral’ — Marxism could alleviate a contemporary crisis in imagining the future in the late twentieth century. This ‘presentist’ crisis results from the collapse of Communism and the alleged triumph of neoliberal democracy, and leaves a dubious choice between neoliberal consensus and potential totalitarianism. This article outlines Derrida's call to a messianic wait for the singularity of an always-arriving future-to-come, and suggests that it provides an entry into the post-nuclear universe of Antoine Volodine's Minor Angels, where a non-linear plot centres on the ghost of a failed Marxist revolutionary and its return. Outlining how Minor Angels creates a spectral temporality which undercuts both aspirations to a ‘radiant future’ and a stagnant present, this article argues that, read alongside, Derrida and Volodine sketch out a democratic future to come that gestures towards an alternative to presentism.