Amélie Nothomb

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Amélie Nothomb

Born August 13, 1967 (1967-08-13) (age 40)
Kobe, Japan
Occupation writer
Nationality Belgian
Notable work(s) Stupeur et tremblements

Amélie Nothomb (born August 13, 1967) is a Belgian writer who writes in French.

Contents

[edit] Biography

She was born in Kobe, Japan to Belgian diplomats. She lived there until she was five years old, and then subsequently lived in China, New York, Bangladesh, Burma, and Laos.

She is from a distinguished Belgian political family; she is notably the grand-niece of Charles-Ferdinand Nothomb, a Belgian foreign minister (1980-1981). Her first novel, Hygiène de l'assassin, was published in 1992. Since then, she has published approximately one novel per year with a.o. Les Catilinaires (1995), Fear and Trembling (1999) and Métaphysique des tubes (published in English as The Character of Rain) (2000).

She has been awarded numerous prizes, including the 1999 Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française; the Prix René-Fallet; and twice the Prix Alain-Fournier.

While in Japan, she attended a local school and learned Japanese. When she was five the family moved to China. « Quitter le Japon fut pour moi un arrachement » (“Leaving Japan was a painful experience for me”) she writes in Fear and Trembling. Nothomb moved often, and did not live in Europe until she was 17, when she moved to Brussels. There, she reportedly felt as much a stranger as everywhere else. She studied philology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. After some family tensions, she returned to Japan to work in a big Japanese company in Tokyo. Her experience of this time is told in Fear and Trembling. She has written a romanticized biography (The Book of Proper Names) for the French female singer RoBERT in 2002 and during the period 2000-2002 she wrote the lyrics for seven tracks of the same artist.

[edit] Bibliography

Published
(in French)		 Original title English title English publication details
1992 Hygiène de l’assassin
1993 Le Sabotage amoureux Loving Sabotage W. W. Norton & Co, hardback, 2000, ISBN 0811214591
Faber and Faber, paperback, 2003, ISBN 0571226639
1993 Légende un peu chinoise
(Longue Vue)
1994 Les Combustibles Human Rites Oberon Books, paperback, 2005, ISBN 1840025395
1995 Les Catilinaires The Stranger Next Door Holt (Henry) & Co, hardback, 1996, ISBN 0805048413
1996 Péplum
1997 Attentat
1998 Mercure
1999 Stupeur et tremblements Fear and Trembling Faber and Faber, paperback, 2002, ISBN 0571220487
1999 Le Mystère par excellence
(Le Grand livre du mois)
2000 Métaphysique des tubes The Character of Rain Faber and Faber, paperback, 2003, ISBN 0571220495
2000 Brillant comme une casserole
(La Pierre d’Alun)
2001 Cosmétique de l’ennemi
2001 Aspirine
2001 Sans nom
(Elle)
2002 Robert des noms propres The Book of Proper Names Faber and Faber, paperback, 2004, ISBN 0571223443
2003 Antéchrista Antichrista Faber and Faber, paperback, 2004, ISBN 0571224830
2004 L’Entrée du Christ à Bruxelles
(Elle)
2004 Biographie de la faim The Life of Hunger Faber and Faber, hardback, 2006
2005 Acide sulfurique Sulphuric Acid Faber and Faber, hardback, 2007
2006 Journal d’Hirondelle
2007 Ni d’Ève, ni d’Adam
2007 les Champignons de Paris (Charlie Hebdo)

Unless otherwise stated, all works were originally published in French by Éditions Albin Michel.

[edit] External links

[edit] References