The Ghost of Frdric Chopin
By (Author) ric Faye
Translated by Sam Taylor
Pushkin Press
Pushkin Press
20th July 2021
6th May 2021
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Fiction in translation
843.92
Paperback
224
Width 129mm, Height 198mm
Prague, 1995: Vera Foltynova, a widow in her late 50s, claims to receive visits from the ghost of great composer Frederic Chopin. What's more, she declares that Chopin has dictated dozens of compositions to her, to allow the world to hear the sublime music he was unable to create in his own short life. Many dismiss her story as a ridiculous hoax, while others swear that the music has the same beauty and refinement as the work of the dead master.
Ludvik Slany, a secret police agent-turned-television journalist, is assigned to make a documentary debunking Vera's claims. He arrives in Prague ready to uncover a scam, but the more he subtly tries to trick her into giving herself away, the more he begins to think he may be witnessing a genuine miracle...
An intricately plotted mystery imbued with the foggy atmosphere of post-Communist Prague, The Ghost of Frederic Chopin is an engrossing story of art, faith and the ghosts of the past.
"[The Ghost of Chopin] has the depth and elegance of a nocturne... ric Faye makes his hero and his story alternate between the meticulous realism of the investigation and a delicate fantasy, quietly opening an unlimited field of possibilities" Le Croix
"A noir novel imbued with mystery and elegance... invites us to discover a Prague, rainy and unsettling, but terribly bewitching" ActuaLitt
Eric Faye is a journalist and prize-winning author of over twenty books of fiction, essays and travel writing. For his fiction he has been awarded the Deux-Magots Prize and the Grand Prix du roman from the Academie Francaise. The Ghost of Frederic Chopin is his eleventh novel.