Trilogy: 'Greed' / 'Fear' / 'Hope'

Following years of exponential growth, the economy collapsed in 2008. The stock market crash marked the beginning of a worldwide financial crisis that kept Europe solidly in its grasp. In his trilogy ‘Greed’, ‘Fear’, ‘Hope’, Stijn Devillé fictionalised the events to create a modern, political and economic thriller.

In ‘Greed’, a number of high fliers in the business world attempt to save their empire from a ruinous downfall. Stockbrokers, CEOs and managers are the modern-day tragic kings, princes and generals ­– except that now they somehow seem to get away with it all. They reappear in ‘Fear’, in which Devillé focuses on life after the optimism of the economic heydays, when the rot of the financial crisis had spread to other parts of society and the world began searching for a new system of values that could not be measured in currency. Tellingly, the final chapter of the trilogy is called ‘Hope’. There, the cunning characters from the previous chapters begin building a new world on the ruins of the old one. ‘Greed’, ‘Fear’, ‘Hope’ are a biting analysis of modern-day Europe, in search of freedom.