Pressure and Perseverance: Review of Alan Damaiso’s Horde of the Counterwind

Eden Kupermintz Under Review:Horde of the Counterwind. Alain Damasio, translated by Alexander Dickow. Abrams, October 2026. Since its publication in French in 2004, Horde of the Counterwind has become one of the most successful novels in the language of all time. That a speculative fiction book has done this in French is not that surprising; the country and language have a long tradition of SFF mainstream success. But the extent of that success is surprising. Alain Damasio’s work, a fantasy adventure novel about a group of people endlessly climbing against an interminable wind, has gone well beyond the SFF community and has been read by over a million French speakers. It has also enjoyed a lofty place in Le Monde’s list of greatest novels of all time, and inspired the video game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which is one of the greatest standout hits in video gaming in this current decade. Those of us who are not plugged into the Francophone literary world might be wondering: what is…