Yiyun Li — Music Against the Night: A Novel (The Nocturne Trilogy) - with Rabih Alameddine — at Conn Ave
7:00 PM • Monday, October 19, 2026Politics & Prose · Politics and ProseFree This event is in partnership with PEN/Faulkner Foundation.Figures of the past find new life in Yiyun Li’s thrillingly imagined saga following two musicians as they mature, study, travel, love, grieve, and, above all, chase their ambitions.In Dublin, as the eighteenth century nears its end, a young musical virtuoso comes of age. John Field, an awkward and sensitive child, is preternaturally gifted, and his family has visions of him becoming the next Mozart. His talent takes him far—to England, France, and then Russia, where he becomes a famous pianist and composes dreamy, languorous melodies that enchant the night air. John calls them nocturnes, but the prodigy who immortalizes them is Chopin.Oceans away in Pondicherry, in French India, Adelaide Percheron has a startling rise of her own. Orphaned at a young age, she is raised by her imperious, enterprising grandmother. Her cousins give her the name Percherette, an impish reminder that despite their shared relations, Adelaide is not one of the crowd, owing to her parents’ differing ancestry. Without a connection to aristocracy or the luxury of riches, only marriage seems to offer prosperity—until she sets her sights on a pianoforte. Driven by her secret love of music and a desire to see the world, Percherette engineers her exodus, escaping to Paris and later to Moscow, as Napoleon’s army sets out to conquer the continent.Peopled by rival prodigies, irate tutors, begrudging guardians, and the true-to-life masters of the trade, Yiyun Li’s magisterial, polyphonic novel depicts two aspiring musicians—destined to be husband and wife—in pursuit of success. Their struggles unfold amid political and artistic upheaval and pit them against the forces of their time. As John and Adelaide each try to chart a path between talent and genius, success and legacy, profit and passion, they must decide what, and even who, is worth sacrificing along the way. Drawing inspiration from the past but finding entirely new forms, Music Against the Night comes to life with the sweep and dimension of the Romantic era and a deep understanding of the demands of living and of art.Yiyun Li is the author of several works of fiction—Wednesday’s Child; The Book of Goose; Must I Go; Where Reasons End; Kinder Than Solitude; Gold Boy, Emerald Girl; The Vagrants; and A Thousand Years of Good Prayers—and the memoirs Things in Nature Merely Grow and Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life. She is the recipient of many awards, including a PEN/Faulkner Award, a PEN/Malamud Award, a PEN/Hemingway Award, a PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a Windham–Campbell Prize, and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, The Best American Short Stories, and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, among other publications. She teaches at Princeton University and lives in Princeton, New Jersey.Li will be in conversation with Rabih Alameddine, the author of the novels The Wrong End of the Telescope; The Angel of History; An Unnecessary Woman; The Hakawati; I, the Divine; and Koolaids, as well as the story collection The Perv. His books have been translated into more than 20 languages. His most recent awards include the 2019 Dos Passos Prize, the 2021 Lannan Prize for Fiction, the 2022 Pen/Faulkner award and the Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award in March 2025. He divides his time between his bedroom and his living room. He is co-editing The Penguin Book of the International Short Story, forthcoming from Penguin Press in 2026, and his new novel, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) was published by from Grove in September 2025 and won the National Book Award for Fiction.This event is free with first come, first serve seating. To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event.
