Wolves have invaded the seaside resort town of Santa Varvara, a fictional postindustrial city in Eastern Europe, killing thousands of people, but no one will speak of it except a Latin professor known as the Old Man. Part detective story, part fable, this novel is set in a mythical landscape where the boundaries between East and West, civilization and barbarianism have been erased. Narrated by a French journalist—Stephanie Delacour, Julia Kristeva’s alter ego—The Old Man and the Wolves shows the great thinker at the height of her literary powers.

"Kristeva’s experimental novel is an iridescent gem glinting with psychoanalytic speculations, shards of myth and classical lore, and musings on death, hate, love and the imagination." - Publishers Weekly

"In Kristeva’s version of the allegorical psychological thriller, the dream of a civilized and civilizing logic becomes transformed into the discontents’ chilling prayer to the wolves themselves." - Review of Contemporary Fiction