Three By Echenoz: Big Blondes, Piano, and Running

Jean

jun 2014 · New Press, The

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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.

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Jean Echenoz is 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. Mark Polizzotti has translated over forty books from the French, including works by Gustave Flaubert, Marguerite Duras, André Breton, Raymond Roussel, Patrick Modiano, and Jean Echenoz, and has written six of his own. He directs the publications program at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where he lives. Liesl Schillinger is a New York–based critic, translator, and moderator. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many other publications. She is the author of the illustrated lexicon Wordbirds, and her recent translations include the novels Every Day, Every Hour by Natasa Dragnic and The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas fils.