The Queen's Caprice: Stories

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

For the publication in English of his Caprice de la reine, Jean Echenoz has made a few minor changes in the texts. These seven récits are his favorite occasional pieces, written on subjects that inspired the author to observe, improvise, invent — for although these stories sometimes spring from historical incident, they are in the end what Echenoz wished to create: “little literary objects.”

This tension between story and history depends in part on the ability of the reader to catch allusions and follow undercurrents of meaning that are reasonably clear to French readers but may pass completely unnoticed in English. I have therefore provided endnotes for some of these references and for a few other points of interest as well.

— Linda Coverdale