The novels of Jean Echenoz are particularly known for their playfulness with which they deconstruct the codes of the paraliterary genres, as well as for a casualness with which they approach the topos of the modernist novel. The production of this author of the last two decades nevertheless testifies of a new direction that slips in the biographical. Like many writers of his generation, Jean Echenoz deals in Jérôme Lindon (2001), Ravel (2006), Courir (2008) and Des éclairs (2010) with the lives of illustrious personalities of our era. We can wonder what the objective of this approach of a writer, who shows his admiration with regard to his characters, is. Is it a simple tribute or need to fill out gaps in history that we will never complete for lack of evidence to support? This paper also tries to deal with the problem of the genre of these texts that lie at the edge between fiction and factual literature.