Nothomb’s protagonist is not Marie but her firstborn daughter, Diane. Instead, though, she gets pregnant, is hurried into marriage and gets a job in her husband’s pharmacy.īut the novel’s beginning turns out to be a false start. In a provincial French town in 1971, 19-year-old Marie enjoys being the center of attention - adored by boys, envied by girls - and feels she is destined for great things. Ably translated from the French by Alison Anderson, this short, pungent tale of familial jealousy, personal ambition and unrequited love introduces a wonderfully compelling heroine and charts her formative relationships with several significant women. Nothomb’s latest offering, “Strike Your Heart,” is a less offbeat, more conventional novel than the two dozen that preceded it, and it is none the worse for that. If there is any justice, that should now change. Although a handful of her works are available in English, she remains something of a little-known wonder in the Anglophone world. Born in Japan to Belgian parents, Nothomb writes slender and spiky books that have charmed and provoked European readers. If you start to read her books, you will continue to read her books.With 25 novels under her belt in a high-profile career spanning 25 years, Amélie Nothomb can justifiably be called a prolific writer. Both Nothomb and Faber write wonderful short novels or novellas.Īmelie Nothomb is already widely popular in France, and she is each year gaining more readers in the English speaking countries. Neither of these writers can be pinned down to any one country they belong to many countries. In a way, Amelie Nothomb reminds me somewhat of the Dutch writer Michel Faber. “Tokyo Fiancee” is a light novel about the romance between a young Japanese guy and a western girl who lives in Japan. “The Character of Rain” is the story of a baby’s first three years of life inside the infant brain. “Loving Sabotage” is about a young 7-year-old child living in China in the 1970s, told from the perspective of an adult. Much of the novel is quite mercilessly humorous about the Japanese business culture. “Fear and Trembling” is about a young woman / girl just out of high school working for a Japanese company She writes about the unique attitudes and behaviors that are part of business in Japan, but only as part of the story she is relating. Her novels are usually quite short, no longer than they need to be, very direct and simple.
#Amelie nothomb books how to#
How to describe her writing? Amelie Nothomb is the most cosmopolitan and autobiographical of novelists, yet her novels are light and amusing as a souffle’.
I have read six of her novels : “The Character of Rain”, “Fear and Trembling”, “The Life of Hunger”, “Loving Sabotage”, “The Stranger Next Door”, and her latest, “Tokyo Fiancee”. Here are the grades that the Complete Review has assigned to her novels so far.Īnyone who has read the Complete Review realizes that the grade of A+ for “Loving Sabotage” is virtually unheard of in the annals of the Complete Review. I discovered Amelie Nothomb about four or five years ago through reading about her in the Complete Review, that comprehensive and trusted source for world literature.
Her father having been a Belgian diplomat, she was actually born in Kobe, Japan and has lived in China, New York, Bangladesh, Burma, Coventry, and Laos. She is technically from Belgium and writes in French. She has already written 13 novels and has received about as much critical acclaim as one writer can stand. You may as well get on the Amelie Nothomb bandwagon now rather than later.
0 kommentar(er)
