The Queen's Caprice: Stories
Aug 2010 · New Press, The
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306
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About this ebook
Seven short stories by the Prix Goncourt winner—“the most distinctive voice of his generation . . . master magician of the contemporary French novel” (The Washington Post).
France’s 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 “Conjuror of St. Germain”, “Echenoz 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.”
The Queen’s Caprice—seven stories available in English for the first time—reveals 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; “Nelson” offers a brilliant miniaturist portrait of the hero of the Battle of Trafalgar; “In Babylon” 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, “again and again we pause to savor the richness of Echenoz’s startling, crystalline observations” (Lydia Davis).
“[A] terrific sense of humor tinged with existential mischief.” —L’Express
France’s 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 “Conjuror of St. Germain”, “Echenoz 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.”
The Queen’s Caprice—seven stories available in English for the first time—reveals 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; “Nelson” offers a brilliant miniaturist portrait of the hero of the Battle of Trafalgar; “In Babylon” 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, “again and again we pause to savor the richness of Echenoz’s startling, crystalline observations” (Lydia Davis).
“[A] terrific sense of humor tinged with existential mischief.” —L’Express
About the author
Jean Echenoz won France's prestigious Prix Goncourt for I'm Gone (The New Press). He is the author of eleven novels in English translation?including 1914, Big Blondes, Lightning, Piano, Ravel, and Running, all published by The New Press?and the winner of numerous literary prizes, among them the Prix Médicis and the European Literature Jeopardy Prize. He lives in Paris. Linda Coverdale's most recent translation for The New Press was Jean Echenoz's 1914. She was the recipient of the French-American Foundation's 2008 Translation Prize for her translation of Echenoz's Ravel (The New Press). She lives in Brooklyn.
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