“The book has a melancholic tone because it’s a Viennese nocturne,” Mr. Énard said. “I’m not especially nostalgic, but today the Middle East is in flames, and, obviously, to talk about Syria becomes a bit of a lamentation because the situation in Syria today is absolutely terrifying, and when we think back a few years ago to what it could have been, it’s sad.”
The novel will be published by New Directions in an English translation next fall.
Another Goncourt finalist, “Les Prépondérants,” which loosely translates as “The Ruling Class,” is a co-winner of the Académie Française’s top prize this year, along with “2084.” Cinematic in scope, with multiple intertwined narratives, the novel is set in the Roaring Twenties, when a Hollywood film crew comes to make a movie in an unnamed North African country under French colonial rule, upsetting the power balance between the colonizers and the colonized and challenging the prevailing conservative social norms.