Jean Echenoz

Four views on our world from characters and real events. The four novels -short, brilliant- by Jean Echenoz that this volume brings together have as a common thread the journey through the bloody, convulsive and stimulating 20th century, although from the unique and inimitable point of view of the great French writer. So in Ravel we have a short and rather obsessive composer who gets on a liner heading to America to start a tour; We have in Running a Czech athlete, Emil Zátopek, with a clumsy appearance, who runs and runs and runs in a Berlin stadium to cross the finish line first and at the same time sneak out of the clutches of the communist regime of his country, which will finish him off. ostracizing; we have in Lightning a misunderstood genius inspired by Nikola Tesla, capable of inventing almost everything, but unable to get the recognition he deserves in return. And finally, we have in 14 the war that, according to some historians, really started the 20th century.