Yiyun Li’s Music Against the Night brings the past into living focus
The novel was released in the United States on 13 October; a new essay by the author examines memory and invention.
The past is more than a setting: it can become a presence brought closer to the reader. This is the territory of Yiyun Li’s new novel, Music Against the Night, published in the United States on 13 October 2026 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, according to the publisher.
The story follows two musicians: John Field, raised in Dublin, and Adelaide Percheron, whose story begins in Pondicherry. Their aspirations raise questions about talent, ambition and sacrifice. In an essay for The New Yorker published that day, Li considers how writing can bring figures from the past closer to the present. Not a historical chronicle to mistake for a document, but a narrative invention questioning memory and distance. The date refers to the American edition.