A new book takes a graphic journey through the long and tedious history of plagues and pandemics

The smell of the sea … the cries of seagulls … a huge building with familiar domes – this must be Istanbul! But no simit shops, no trams, no Ottoman architecture – no, this is an Istanbul of many centuries past. People are wearing tunics, togas, long bright gowns. Young men are carrying high-status persons in litters across the broadly paved streets. This is Constantinople in the sixth century that I find myself in. I have woken up just opposite the famous Hagia Sophia, and there is someone preaching, imploring, crying. A woman, elderly, poor, perhaps homeless, perhaps uneducated, but powerfully eloquent.

“Repent your sins! The end of the world is near! In three days’ time, the sea will rise and it will swallow everything – all of us, our possessions, our houses, churches, and palaces. Repent before it is too late,” Zoë cries, her frail body trembling with exhaustion, her voice hoarse from shouting. A fortnight ago, nightmares of a world falling apart had started haunting her, depriving her of sleep, putting her into a state of agitation and eventually of trance. She had to leave her makeshift hut close to the Bosphorus, had to warn people of their impending fate....

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