Hours. Landscapes. Seasons. Life. A musical meditation in poetic prose. 'At any given moment in time', writes Quignard, 'a work receives its sudden audition. Bach and Mendelssohn. Froberger in Bach. A bird in Messiaen.'Like Bach, Quignard is anachronistic. In his remarkable body of work, the accomplished musician and writer, who once began writing a thesis on the language of Bergson, probes incessantly the mystery of time. Happy the Hours is the epitome of this probing, a perpetual beginning. Pascal Quignard is laureate of the Grand Prix du roman de l'Academie francaise (2000), the Prix Goncourt (2002) and the Prix Formentor (2023), amongst many other prestigious awards. Happy the Hours (Les Heures Heureuses, Albin Michel, 2023) is the twelfth in his Last Kingdom series.