The last years of the great French composer's life as envisioned by "the master magician of the contemporary French novel" (The Washington Post)

A bestseller in France, Ravel is a beguiling and original evocation of the last ten years in the life of a musical genius, written by the acclaimed novelist Jean Echenoz, winner of the Prix Goncourt. The book opens in 1927 as Maurice Ravel - dandy, eccentric, and curmudgeon - voyages across the Atlantic aboard the luxurious ocean liner the France to begin his triumphant grand tour across the United States, where he will travel aboard such fabled trains as the Zephyr, the Hiawatha, and the Sunset Limited, smoking his precious stash of Gauloises along the way.

Illuminated by flashes of Echenoz's characteristically sly humor, Ravel is not just a delightfully quirky portrait of a famous musician coping with the ups and downs of his professional and personal life but a truly touching farewell to a dignified and lonely old man going reluctantly into the night.