Jean Echenoz (born 1947 in Orange) is a French novelist whose work spans from the late twentieth century to the present. He writes in French and has published with the Minuit imprint since his first book. His appeal lies in a spare, precise and playful way of telling stories, which has helped renew contemporary French fiction.
The son of a psychiatrist, he studied sociology and civil engineering in Rodez, Digne-les-Bains, Lyon, Aix-en-Provence, Marseille and Paris, and has lived in Paris since 1970. He briefly contributed to the newspaper L'Humanité before devoting himself fully to writing. His first novel, Le Méridien de Greenwich, appeared in 1979 and won the Fénéon Prize the following year. Since then he has published about twenty books, mostly novels and short narratives, and has received around ten literary prizes, among them the Prix Médicis in 1983 for Cherokee and the Prix Goncourt in 1999 for Je m'en vais.
His style combines economy of means and exact description with invented words, humour and irony. Between 2006 and 2010 he wrote three books built on real lives: Ravel, on the composer; Courir, on the athlete Emil Zátopek, and Des éclairs, on the engineer Nikola Tesla. Music, which has accompanied him since childhood and which he plays on the double bass, runs through his work. He later returned to fiction with 14 (2012), set during the First World War, and Envoyée spéciale (2016), set in North Korea.
His legacy lies in showing that French fiction can be rigorous, funny and experimental without giving up the close observation of everyday life. He has also worked on film scripts and took part in a new translation of the books of the Maccabees for a Bible edition.
Key works
- Le Méridien de Greenwich (1979): his first novel, which set out the precise and humorous manner of his later work.
- Cherokee (1983): Prix Médicis winner, a tale of intrigue and shifting identities told with great economy.
- Lac (1989): a novel in which a character moves between places and conventions with irony, later published in English as Chopin's Move.
- Je m'en vais (1999): Prix Goncourt winner, about a man who decides to vanish from his former life.
- 14 (2012): a short narrative set during the First World War, following five men and a woman who waits for their return.
Curiosities
Prize for his first book
His first novel, *Le Méridien de Greenwich*, won the Fénéon Prize in 1980, a year after it appeared.
A musical household
His parents loved classical music and both his grandparents played the piano. He plays the double bass himself, and music has stayed with him all his life.
A tribute to his editor
He has always published with Minuit, and he told the story of his arrival there in *Jérôme Lindon*, a tribute to his editor.
Original Filopedia text based on Wikipedia (es) and Wikipedia (en) and Wikidata.