Seven short stories by the Prix Goncourt winnerโโthe most distinctive voice of his generationย .ย .ย . master magician of the contemporary French novelโ (The Washington Post).
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Franceโs preeminent fiction writer, Jean Echenoz is celebrated for his ability to craft stories with such precision that readers are caught off guard by the intense emotion and imagination just beneath the placid surface of his writing. As Gary Indiana put it in his essay โConjuror of St. Germainโ, โEchenoz risks everything in his fiction, gambling on the prodigious blandishments of his voice to lure his readers into a maze of improbabilities and preposterous happenings.โ
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The Queenโs Capriceโseven stories available in English for the first timeโreveals Echenoz at the height of his talents, taking readers on a journey across radically different landscapes. The title story explores a tiny corner of the French countryside; โNelsonโ offers a brilliant miniaturist portrait of the hero of the Battle of Trafalgar; โIn Babylonโ sketches the ancient city of Mesopotamia, based on trace descriptions from Herodotus; and other stories visit the forests of England, the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, Tampa Bay, and the interior of a submarine. Amid the thrill and allure of this voyage of words, โagain and again we pause to savor the richness of Echenozโs startling, crystalline observationsโ (Lydia Davis).
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โ[A] terrific sense of humor tinged with existential mischief.โ โLโExpress