Jean Echenoz – författare

Ravel is a beguiling and original evocation of the last ten years in the life of the musical genius Ravel, written by novelist Jean Echenoz.The book opens in 1928 as Maurice Ravel—dandy, eccentric, curmudgeon—crosses the Atlantic abroad the luxury liner the SS France to begin his triumphant grand tour of the United States. A “master magician of the French novel” (The Washington Post), Echenoz captures the folly of the era as well as its genius, including Ravel’s personal life—sartorially and socially splendid—as well as his most successful compositions from 1927 to 1937.Illuminated by flashes of Echenoz’s characteristically sly humor, Ravel is a delightfully quirky portrait of a famous musician coping with the ups and downs of his illustrious career. It is also a beautifully written novel that’s a deeply touching farewell to a dignified and lonely man going reluctantly into the night.

A single volume that gathers together three of the most remarkable novels from Jean Echenoz, the “most distinctive French voice of his generation” (The Washington Post), Three by Echenoz demonstrates the award-winning author's extraordinary versatility and elegant yet playful style at its finest.“A parodic thriller sparkling with wit” (L'Humanité), Big Blondes probes our universal obsession with fame as a television documentary producer tries to track down a renowned singer who has mysteriously disappeared. A darkly comedic, noir-style tour de force, it finally answers the age-old question: do blondes have more fun?“Fluid, never forced…like a garment that fits beautifully even inside-out” (Elle), Piano brings Dante's Inferno to contemporary Paris, following Max Delmarc, a concert pianist suffering from paralyzing stage fright and alchoholism, as he meets his untimely death and descends through purgatory—part luxury hotel, part minimum-security prison—into a modern vision of hell.Running is “a small wonder of writing and humanity” (L'Express)—a portrait of the legendary Czech athlete Emil Zátopek, who became a national hero, winning three gold medals at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics even as he was compelled to face the unyielding realities of life under an authoritarian regime.

Jean Echenoz’s sly and playful novels have won critical and popular acclaim in France as well as in the United States, where he has been profiled by the New Yorker and called the "most distinctive voice of his generation" by theWashington Post. With his wonderfully droll and intriguing new work Special Envoy, Echenoz turns his hand to the espionage novel which, when published in France, stormed the bestseller lists.Special Envoy begins with an old general in his dilapidated office in France’s intelligence agency asking his trusted lieutenant Paul Objat for ideas about a person he wants for a particular job: someone pretty, female, and easily manipulated. Objat has someone in mind: Constance, an attractive, restless, bored woman in a failing marriage to a washed-up pop musician. She is abducted by Objat’s cronies and spirited away into the bowels of France’s intelligence bureaucracy where she is trained for the mission to spearhead the destabilization of Kim Jong-un’s regime in North Korea. Will Constance survive her mission in Pyongyang? Will her feckless husband ever write another pop hit? Joyously strange and unpredictable, full of twists and coincidences, Special Envoy is, in the words of L’Express "a pure gem, a delight at all times, a comedy monument, a celebration of the French language."

Det tjeckiska lokomotivet, världens bäste löpare genom tiderna, Emil Zátopek tog tre OS-guld i Helsingfors 1952. Jean Echenoz skildrar Zátopeks liv med Sovjet och kalla kriget som bakgrund, där Zátopek snart utnyttjas och kontrolleras av den stalinistiska statsapparaten. På sitt karaktäristiska sätt, lika elegant som lekfullt, berättar Echenoz om en långdistanslöpares uppgång och fall. Springa blev en bästsäljare i Frankrike när den kom ut, och följer Zátopek från arbetet på skofabriken, via de interna löpartävlingarna (som Zátopek först motvilligt deltar i) mot hans nyvunna intresse av att undersöka kroppen och dess begränsningar genom långdistanslöpning. Zátopek utvecklar sina egna träningsmetoder, uppfinner bland annat spurten, och utvecklas till att bli en världsstjärna. Hans tre OS-guld i Helsingfors 1952 är fortfarande oöverträffat. När hans karriär tycks närma sig den absoluta toppen måste han möta den alltmer kontrollerande och totalitära sovjetstyrda regimen. Springa är en vacker bok, fylld av samtidshistoria, individens förhållande till kollektivet, och människans undersökningar av sina fysiska begränsningar. En fascinerande biografi om en av världens bästa löpare och tillika ett dokument över efterkrigstidens Europa.

With his trademark comically wry phrasing and a sure eye for quirky detail, Echenoz has produced his oddest and most enjoyable novel to date. Chopin's Move interweaves the fates of Chopin, entomologist and recalcitrant secret agent; Oswald, a young foreign-affairs employee who vanishes en route to his new home; Suzy, who gets enmeshed in a tangle of deceit and counterdeceit; the mysterious Colonel Seck, whose motivations are never quite what they seem; and a typically Echenozian supporting cast of neurotic bodyguards, disquieting functionaries, and crafty double agents. As the plot thickens, the characters become embroiled in layer upon layer of deception and double-dealing, leading them further into a world in which nothing can be taken at face value and in which "reality" hinges on apparently harmless coincidence.

Renowned singer Gloire Stella has mysteriously disappeared. When a television producer tries to track her down, Gloire goes on the run. From the cliffs of Brittany to the back alleys of Bombay, Big Blondes is a riotous, nonstop adventure for anyone who has ever wondered whether blondes really do have more fun.

Following his brilliant portrait of Maurice Ravel, Jean Echenoz turns to the life of one of the greatest runners of the twentieth century, and once again demonstrates his astonishing abilities as a prose stylist. Set against the backdrop of the Soviet liberation and post–World War II communist rule of Czechoslovakia, Running—a bestseller in France—follows the famed career of Czech runner Emil Zátopek: a factory worker who, despite an initial contempt for athletics as a young man, is forced to participate in a footrace and soon develops a curious passion for the physical limits he discovers as a long-distance runner.Zátopek, who tenaciously invents his own brutal training regimen, goes on to become a national hero, winning an unparalleled three gold medals at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and breaking countless world records along the way. But just as his fame brings him upon the world stage, he must face the realities of an increasingly controlling regime.Written in Echenoz’s signature style—elegant yet playful—Running is both a beautifully imagined and executed portrait of a man and his art, and a powerful depiction of a country’s propagandizing grasp on his fate.

Drawn from the life of Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest inventors of his time,Lightning is a captivating tale of one man’s curious fascination with the marvels of science.Hailed by the Washington Post as “the most distinctive voice of his generation,” Echenoz traces the notable career of Gregor, a precocious young engineer from Eastern Europe, who travels across the Atlantic at the age of twenty-eight to work alongside Thomas Edison, with whom he later holds a long-lasting rivalry. After his discovery of alternating current, Gregor quickly begins to astound the world with his other brilliant inventions, including everything from radio, radar, and wireless communication to cellular technology, remote control, and the electron microscope.Echenoz gradually reveals the eccentric inner world of a solitary man who holdsa rare gift for imagining devices well before they come into existence. Gregor is a recluse—an odd and enigmatic intellect who avoids women and instead prefers spending hours a day courting pigeons in Central Park.Winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, Echenoz once again demonstrateshis astonishing abilities as a prose stylist as he vividly captures the life of an isolated genius. A beautifully crafted portrait of a man who prefers the company of lightning in the Colorado desert to that of other human beings, Lightning is a dazzling new work from one of the world’s leading contemporary authors.

France's pre-eminent fiction writer is frequently credited with a kind of literary magic, an ability to craft stories with such precision and detail that readers are caught off guard by the powerful currents of emotion and imagination that lie just beneath the surface of his writing. The Queen's Caprice - seven new stories presented in English for the first time - reveals Echenoz at the height of his talents. The author takes us on a journey across radically different places and landscapes, giving free rein to a terrific sense of humour tinged with existential mischief' (L'Express).'

Louis Meyer is an overworked aerospace engineer looking forward to a week-long vacation on the Mediterranean. DeMilo is an astronaut and self-proclaimed ladies’ man whose behavior borders on the obsessive and voyeuristic. When a series of coincidences and disasters-including a devastating earthquake in Marseilles-brings them together on a spacecraft with an aloof woman they are both strongly attracted to, the two men’s flaws and shortcomings emerge as they engage in an underhanded competition to win her over. Brimming with Jean Echenoz’s inimitable humor, We Three is both a satirical take on the adventure novel and subtle experiment with narrative point of view.

'I'm off', says Félix Ferrer to his wife. 'I'm leaving you'. And closing the door on their suburban home, Ferrer, a creature of appetite, impulse and habit, a man of our times, embarks on a journey to the extremes. A man at Ferrer's time of life should be starting to treat himself - and his heart - carefully, not living the bachelor life in the Paris atelier that doubles as his art gallery. Not weighing up every girl he sees. Not ignoring his doctor's warnings to avoid the very hot and the very cold. And certainly not making for the North Pole in pursuit of a rare cargo of Inuit artefacts. Soon, back from the merciless Arctic, packed with ex-girlfriends, anxious artists and suspicious creditors, Paris in the summer begins to feel very hot indeed for Ferrier...In One Year Victoire wakes up one morning to find her boyfriend lying dead beside her. Not wanting to be caught with a corpse, she packs her bags, raids her bank account and makes off, randomly, for the Southwest. And when she has lost her belongings, her money, her looks and almost herself - one year later - the coast is clear for her to come back to Paris. But nothing prepares her for the shock of what greets her return...