Amélie Nothomb

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Amélie Nothomb (born August 13, 1967) is a Belgian writer. She was born in Kobe, Japan to Belgian diplomats, before living in China, New York, Bangladesh, Burma, and Laos. She is 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 Prix du Roman de L'Academie Francaise; 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 very often, before discovering Europe, more precisely, Brussels, where she reportedly felt as much a stranger as everywhere else. She studied philology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. After facing troubles in her family, she returned to Tokyo to work in a big Japanese company. Her experience of this time is told in Fear and Trembling. She has written an 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.

She now lives and writes in Brussels. She says she writes three novels a year, publishing only one.

[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
2006	Journal d'Hirondelle