Jean Echenoz 
Lightning 
A Novel

Drawn from the life of Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest inventors of his time,


Lightning is a captivating tale of one man’s curious fascination with the marvels of science.



Hailed by the
Washington Post as “the most distinctive voice of his generation, ” Echenoz traces the notable career of Gregor, a precocious young engineer from Eastern Europe, who travels across the Atlantic at the age of twenty-eight to work alongside Thomas Edison, with whom he later holds a long-lasting rivalry. After his discovery of alternating current, Gregor quickly begins to astound the world with his other brilliant inventions, including everything from radio, radar, and wireless communication to cellular technology, remote control, and the electron microscope.



Echenoz gradually reveals the eccentric inner world of a solitary man who holds

a rare gift for imagining devices well before they come into existence. Gregor is a recluse—an odd and enigmatic intellect who avoids women and instead prefers spending hours a day courting pigeons in Central Park.



Winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, Echenoz once again demonstrates

his astonishing abilities as a prose stylist as he vividly captures the life of an isolated genius. A beautifully crafted portrait of a man who prefers the company of lightning in the Colorado desert to that of other human beings,
Lightning is a dazzling new work from one of the world’s leading contemporary authors.

About the author

Jean Echenoz won France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt for
I’m Gone (The New Press). He is the author of five previous novels in English translation and the winner of numerous literary prizes, among them the Prix Medicis and the European Literature Jeopardy Prize. He lives in Paris.


Linda Coverdale’s most recent translation for The New Press was Jean Echenoz’s
Running. She was the recipient of the French American Foundation’s 2008 Translation Prize for her translation of Echenoz’s
Ravel. She lives in Brooklyn.