Her newest novel-her 19th-is Une Forme de Vie, structured around imaginary letters between the author and an American soldier stationed in Baghdad, a man beset by fear and mired in obesity. Also noteworthy is Nothomb’s massive correspondence: She receives several dozen letters every day, and says that she tries to answer most of them personally. But isn’t this art of the novella precisely what seduced her readers in the first place?Įither way, she is always the main attraction at every literary fair, with hundreds of fans standing in line for hours at her book signings. Critics would argue that this feat of productivity is possible mainly because of the brevity of her books. She claims to complete three or four novels every year, most of them kept under lock and key, never to be released. She typically writes from four to eight in the morning, she says, after drinking half a liter of black tea.
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With her bizarre hats and strange habits, Nothomb is definitely a departure from the usually bland world of literature-she once even ate rotting fruit on a live TV show.īut her true originality lies in her words. Awarded the prestigious Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie Française, the novel sold half a million copies and swept its author into the French literary spotlight. Her big breakthrough came seven years later with Fear and Trembling, the true comic tale of her nightmare experience in a Japanese corporation.
Though not a huge best seller, the novel was well received by both critics and readers-successful enough to set her on the road to publishing a new novel every year. “I wasn’t sure what to do with my life, so I figured, why not try to do something with my manuscripts?” Good thinking: She was only 25 when Editions Albin Michel, her publisher from that moment on, released Hygiene and the Assassin. “That’s how I discovered the necessity and the pleasure of literature.”Īfter a painful period of anorexia and a disastrous experience in Tokyo, where she ended up working as a toilet cleaner, Nothomb finally settled in Brussels. “My parents forced me to write to my grandfather,” she recalls. Following her diplomat father, young Amélie spent her first five years in Japan before moving to China, Burma, Bangladesh and Laos, among other posts. But there are surely worse ways to get back in gear than by reading one of her marvelous novels, which tend to mix autobiography, impossible love, eating disorders and a cold and cynical, but highly hilarious, outlook on life.Īlthough her work has now been translated into 39 languages, Amélie Nothomb wasn’t exactly predestined to rival Georges Simenon and Tintin’s creator Hergé as Belgium’s most successful writer.
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“When the latest Nothomb arrives, you’re put on notice: summer vacation is over!” a well-known critic cracked a few years ago. Discovered in France in 1992 with her first novel, Hygiene and the Assassin, Nothomb has ever since been a popular fixture of September’s rentrée littéraire-the start of the literary season-and her novels regularly sell more than 200,000 copies each. Outgoing, incisive and ironic, this Amélie belongs to a distinctly less idealistic world. Born in Kobe, Japan, to Belgian diplomats, Amélie Nothomb is a far cry from the elfin young waitress played in the film by Audrey Tautou. Her name may be Amélie, but she’s definitely not from Montmartre. Her latest: Une Forme de Vie, a fictional exchange of letters with an American soldier in Iraq. With a new book out almost every year, the Belgian novelist is one of the most popular writers in France.
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