Mathias Énard’s immersive, nocturnal, musical journey is a declaration of admiration, a hand reaching out, a bridge of words between West and East. Translated by Charlotte Mandell.
As night falls over Vienna, Franz Ritter, an insomniac musicologist, spends a restless night drifting between dreams and memories. He revisits his life: his travels to Istanbul, Aleppo, Damascus and Tehran; the various writers, artists, musicians, academics and explorers who populate this vast dreamscape. At the centre of these memories is an elusive, unrequited love – Sarah, a fiercely intelligent French scholar caught in the perpetual tension between Europe and the Middle East.
Mathias Énard
About the Author
Mathias Énard, born in 1972 in Niort, France, studied Persian and Arabic and has spent long periods in the Middle East.
Charlotte Mandell
About the Translator
Charlotte Mandell has translated fiction, poetry, and philosophy from the French.