Amélie Nothomb Books

Marie is the prettiest girl in her provincial hometown and is dating the most popular boy in town. She is the envy of all her schoolmates and she loves it. When she falls pregnant and gives birth to Diana, things change. Diana steals the hearts of all who meet her, inciting nothing but jealousy in her mother. This is Diana's story. The story of a young, brilliant woman who grows up without maternal affection. It is the story of Diana's relationships with other women: her best friend, the sweet Elisabeth; her mentor, the selfish Olivia; her sister, the beloved Célia; and, of course, her mother. It is a story about the baser sentiments that often animate human relations: rivalry, jealousy, distrust.

In a wistful, funny, clever, and eccentric fictional memoir, Amelie Nothomb casts herself as hunger - in all its many guises. Recounting the formative journeys of her youth, from Tokyo to Peking to Paris to New York, The Life of Hunger is a brilliant and moving examination of the self.

The book, recognized with the prestigious 2021 Renaudot Prize, explores profound themes through its compelling narrative. It delves into the intricacies of human relationships and societal challenges, offering a unique perspective that resonates with contemporary issues. The characters are richly developed, navigating their personal journeys against a backdrop of cultural and historical significance. This award-winning work stands out for its literary merit and thought-provoking insights, making it a significant contribution to modern literature.

In 'The Character of Rain', we learn that divinity is a difficult thing from which to recover, particularly if, like the child in this story, you have spent the first two and a half years of life in a nearly vegetative state.

With wry humor and a deceptively simple style, Amelie Nothomb, the author of over twenty-three best-selling novels tells an unusual story about twin abiding passions: one for champagne, and the other for a riotous friendship between her protagonist and Petronille Fanto, a woman who refuses to drink alone.

Tells the story of a reclusive and dying Nobel laureate novelist who grants access to five journalists for interviews. What they find is far from the literary luminary they imagined

Amelie, a well-intentioned and eager young westerner, goes to Japan to spend a year working at the Yumimoto Corporation. Returning to the land where she was born is the fulfilment of a dream for Amelie, but once there her working life quickly becomes a comic nightmare of terror and self-abasement. Disturbing, hilarious and totally convincing, Fear and Trembling displays an elegant and shrewd understanding of the intricate ways in which Japanese relationships are made and spoiled.

Sulphuric Acid tells the story of a reality TV death camp, which has become the nation's obsession - an amoral spectacle played out through the media. It is a blackly funny and shocking satire on the modern predilection for reality television and celebrity, in which the audience at home develops a taste for blood.

"To have an extraordinary life, Lucette believes, one must have and extraordinary name. Horrified by the pedestrian names her husband chooses for their unborn child (Tanguy if it's a boy, Joelle if it's a girl), Lucette does the only honorable thing to save her baby from such an unexceptional destiny - she kills her spouse. While in prison, Lucette gives birth to a daughter to whom she bequeaths the portentous name of an obscure saint, Plectrude, before hanging herself."."From her beginnings, Plectrude seems fated for a life like no other. Raised by an indulgent and adoring aunt, she is a dreamy child who is discovered to have enormous gifts as a dancer. Accepted at Paris's most prestigious ballet school, Plectrude devotes herself to artistic perfection, giving dance her heart and soul - and ultimately her body. As her world shatters as easily as her bones, she learns to survive in the only way she knows how - by committing an act of deadly self-preservation her mother would have understood best."--BOOK JACKET.

'I lived everything during these three years: heroism, glory, treachery, love, indifference, suffering, humiliation. It was China, I was seven years old.' So announces the narrator of Loving Sabotage, Amelie Nothomb's critically acclaimed novel about a young girl already stripped of illusions.