The Book of Joan

Set in a dystopian future in which Earth has been rendered all but uninhabitable, the action of American author Lidia Yuknavitch’s work of speculative fiction The Book of Joan (2017) takes place primarily aboard a space station called CIEL. There an artist, Christine Pizan, and her friend Trinculo join forces with an Earth-based resistance movement lead by a young woman with special powers, Joan of Dirt. The Book of Joan was hailed by critics as a “harrowing and timely entry into the canon of speculative fiction” (Kirkus Reviews).

The year is 2049. A vicious war over resources has left the world uninhabitable, and the surviving remnant of humanity has retreated to a space station called CIEL. The inhabitants of CIEL have rapidly devolved, becoming weak, translucent, and genderless. Longing for physical sensation of any kind, they have invented an art-form they call “skinstory,” in which words and images are seared into their pale flesh with blowtorches.

Forty-nine-year-old Christine Pizan is a respected skinstory artist, but she is in her last year of life. All CIEL citizens are executed on their 50th birthdays in order to shore up the water supply.



CIEL is ruled by a dictator, the former television personality turned warlord, Jean de Men. Pizan and her best friend, Trinculo, despise the dictator, and when they are arrested by de Men’s enforcers, Pizan learns that Trinculo is due to be executed. He has been found guilty of conspiring with an Earth-based resistance movement.

The movement is led by a young woman named Joan. Her story is etched on the most intimate parts of Pizan’s body, and we learn it from her. In childhood, Joan acquired superhuman powers. She became the leader of the ecological resistance movement, fighting to preserve the Earth from the ravages of Jean de Men’s political and military regime, whose plan was simply to exploit the planet’s resources until they ran out.

One day, Joan had a vision of the future and realized that should the war continue, the Earth would be irreparably destroyed. She lay down in the dirt and summoned all her power, triggering a cataclysmic event that made the planet uninhabitable and forced de Men to retreat to the space station.



On CIEL, Christine encounters Nyx, who reveals that—like Joan—she is an “engenderine.” Nyx explains that engenderines are beings partly composed of pure energy, who can teleport and affect matter in powerful ways. With Nix, Christine devises a plan to stage a theatrical production that will give her a chance to assassinate Jean de Men and save Trinculo from execution.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Joan and her closest companion, Leone, are living in the deep Son Doong Cave in Vietnam. They are alone, but Joan recalls an incident that happened some years earlier: she and Leone found a young boy, whom they named Miles. The boy had insisted that other people had survived the cataclysm and that he felt duty-bound to return to them to inform them of Joan’s survival. Joan sent him on his way with a lock of her hair and a letter addressed to the survivors.

One day, Leone is out collecting salvage when she encounters a man at the entrance to the cave. She stabs him, only to learn that he is Joan’s brother Peter. He dies, but Joan’s power briefly resurrects him so he can explain what he knows. He has been living with a community of resistance survivors underground, and Joan’s letter reached him. He and his community know how the Earthlings can reach CIEL. Peter dies, and the cave begins to collapse. Leone is kidnapped by Jean de Men’s forces, but Joan is whisked away by Nyx.



Nyx takes Joan to the dry bed of the river Seine in Paris, the home of the resistance forces. She explains that Joan can draw on the power of other engenderines and sacrifice her body to regenerate the Earth if she is willing to die in the process.

Meanwhile, on CIEL, Christine’s play begins. Jean de Men is in the audience, with her captive, Leone. De Men cuts Leone open, extracts her uterus and eats it. Christine gives the signal (the word “Joan”) and her actors attack de Men. As the dictator dies, Christine observes on his body the scars of crude gender reassignment surgery: the dictator was born a woman. Joan arrives with an army of engenderine children and routs the dictator’s troops. She rescues Leone, who is still alive, and they return to Earth.

Christine and Trinculo seize control of CIEL and set it on course for the Sun, choosing to die in order to destroy the dictator’s society. Meanwhile on Earth, Leone helps Joan to bury herself in the first once more, where Joan sacrifices herself to regenerate the Earth.