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Hi, author of Foliate here. It sounds like you're using something like Ubuntu 16.04 or similar? Foliate currently requires GJS >= 1.52 and Meson >= 0.40. There's an open issue here on supporting older systems: https://github.com/johnfactotum/foliate/issues/45
I'm using Debian 9.8 Stretch, released in February.
Yeah, that's not how Debian stable works.