CS Richardson’s first novel, The End of the Alphabet, was an international bestseller and won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best first book. With his follow-up, Richardson has taken the approach he used in his debut and turned it on its head. Instead of one couple travelling to many places, the new novel features multiple characters all rooted in Paris’s eighth arrondissement. The Emperor of Paris is set in the first half of the 20th century, whereas its predecessor was set in the second half. And the new novel features French characters who come together, where the earlier book was about English characters who drift apart.

The two novels share themes of the importance of art, the human need for narrative, and the notion of identity. Richardson’s narrative style has also remained constant: he moves back and forth in time, and often deploys short sentences or sentence fragments to good effect.

Much of the action in The Emperor of Paris is centred on two key locales: the Boulangerie Notre-Dame and the Louvre and its environs. The bakery is run by Emile, the thinnest baker in Paris, and his wife. Their lives are changed first by the birth of their son, Octavio, and then by the horror of the Great War.

Richardson nicely shows how art and storytelling can help rescue people from misery. Octavio takes his shell-shocked father to the Louvre, where they make up stories about the art they encounter. The making of stories, the exercise of the imagination, becomes an essential part of their lives, which might otherwise be too painful to endure. In addition to Octavio, who is dyslexic but believes he can harness the power of literature by becoming a fanatical book collector, the author populates his novel with Jacob, a starving artist; Henri, a bookseller with a stall along the Seine; Grenelle, a watchmaker; and Isabeau, a restorer of paintings. These characters, along with the rest of Richardson’s vibrant cast, create a world of entrancing personalities who find companionship and possible romance.

The Emperor of Paris is a rich and well-told story of the transcendent power of art; it would not be surprising if it were to gain even greater accolades than The End of the Alphabet.