According to ancient Japanese protocol, foreigners deigning to approach the emperor did so only with fear and trembling. Terror and self-abasement conveyed respect. Amélie, our well-intentioned and eager young Western heroine, goes to Japan to spend a year working at the Yumimoto Corporation. Returning to the land …
The Japanese believe that until the age of three, children are gods, each one a 'Lord Child'. On their third birthday they fall from grace and join the rest of humanity. Narrated by a child - from the age of two and a half up until her third birthday - this novel reveals that the move from deity to ordinary member of …
Published in English for the first time, Nothomb's award-winning novel tells the story of a reclusive and dying Nobel laureate author who grants access to five journalists. But what they find is far from the literary luminary they imagined.
When Blanche's mother, who finds her own daughter rather colourless, bookish and dull, is also dazzled by Christa, she soon invites her to stay at the family house. Suddenly Christa can do no wrong and, as Blanche's parents scour their address books for long-lost friends to invite to dinner to meet the newcomer, their …
The Book of Proper Names is a Belgian novel by Amélie Nothomb. It was first published in 2002. It is a romanticized account of the life of the singer RoBERT, whom Nothomb became acquainted with as an avid admirer of her songs.
Amélie Nothomb brings humor, intelligence, and a refreshing honesty to this highly autobiographical work. Her storytelling appeals to those who feel that their own immediate and personal sense of love is seldom adequately represented in popular fiction. Amélie is a young language teacher living in Tokyo. When she …
So announces the narrator of Loving Sabotage, Amelie Nothomb's critically acclaimed novel about a young girl who seems already stripped of illusions. The daughter of diplomats posted in Peking for three years in the mid-seventies, our unnamed narrator charges about her tightly enclosed world of the concrete ghetto of …
Sulphuric Acid is a Belgian novel by Amélie Nothomb. It was first published in 2005. It details the thoughts and pursuits of the people involved in a reality show recreating a concentration camp. The book provoked strong reactions, both for and against. Nothomb was subsequently invited to explain herself on a TV show …