Yiyun Li's Music Against the Night imagines the life of nocturne inventor John Field

Yiyun Li's Music Against the Night, a historical novel set in the past, imagines the life of John Field, the Dublin-born pianist and composer remembered as the inventor of the nocturne, a short, dreamy piano piece. It is the first volume of a planned Nocturne Trilogy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux published the U.S. edition on 13 October 2026.