The French Novel That Inspired Clair Obscur Is Finally Coming to English — 22 Years Later
A French fantasy novel long deemed untranslatable is getting its first English edition this October — and it is the book that helped shape one of 2025's most talked-about video games.
Abrams Books is publishing Alain Damasio's Horde of the Counterwind (originally La Horde du Contrevent) in the United States, with a hardback release scheduled for 13 October 2026 (Eurogamer). The UK release follows on 12 November 2026, according to an Amazon UK listing. The Abrams edition is priced at US$32.00 (Abrams Books).
The novel first appeared in French in 2004, published by La Volte, and went on to win the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire — France's premier speculative-fiction award — in the Francophone novel category in 2006. Abrams Books describes it as France's defining fantasy and science-fiction odyssey of the twenty-first century (Abrams Books). More than a million French readers have picked it up since publication, and it was voted the best book of the twenty-first century by readers of the French review site Sens critique, as well as the twelfth-greatest book of all time by subscribers to the newspaper Le Monde.
The story follows twenty-three adventurers climbing endlessly against the wind that plagues their desolate homeland, aiming for a place called the Upper Reaches and the mysterious source of the wind itself. Their world is ruled by seven types of wind, classified by force. Over eight hundred years, thirty-three previous groups — called hordes — tried and failed to reach the top. Abrams draws a comparison to the epic scope and world-building of Frank Herbert's Dune.
What held back an English translation for over two decades was the prose itself. The novel was long considered untranslatable because of the intricacy and uniqueness of Damasio's language, which invents words and bends French syntax to carry its world's voice (Eurogamer). The translator taking on that challenge is Alexander Dickow, whose previous work includes translations of Max Jacob's The Central Laboratory, Sylvie Kandé's The Neverending Quest for the Other Shore, Henri Droguet's Showers and Bright Spells, and works by Gustave Roud.
The timing is no coincidence. Horde of the Counterwind is cited as one of the driving inspirations behind Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the turn-based role-playing game from French studio Sandfall Interactive that launched in 2025 (Eurogamer). Sandfall co-founder and chief technology officer Tom Guillermin has said the novel directly inspired the game's story (Unreal Engine).
For the English-speaking players who came to Damasio's world through the game, the book that started it all arrives this autumn.
