Amelie Nothomb's Books

The Character of Rain

A Novel

By: Amelie Nothomb

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The Japanese believe that until the age of three, children, whether Japanese or not, are gods, each one an okosama, or "lord child." On their third birthday they fall from grace and join the rest of the human race. In Amelie Nothomb's new novel, 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 tow and a half years of life in a nearly vegetative state. "I remember everything that happened to me after the age of two and one-half," the narrator tells us. She means this literally. Once jolted out of her plant-like , tube-like trance (to the ecstatic relief of her concerned parents), the child bursts into existence, absorbing everything that Japan, where her father works as a diplomat, has to offer. Life is an unfolding pageant of delight and danger, a ceaseless exploration of pleasure and the limits of power. Most wondrous of all is the discovery of water: oceans, seas, pools, puddles, streams, ponds, and, perhaps most of all, rain-one meaning of the Japanese character for her name. Hers is an amphibious life. The Character of Rain evokes the hilarity, terror, and sanctity of childhood. As she did in the award-winning, international bestesller Fear and Trembling, Nothomb grounds the novel in the outlines of her experiences in Japan, but the self-portrait that emerges from these pages is hauntingly universal. Amelie Nothomb's novels are unforgettable immersion experiences, leaving you both holding your breath with admiration, your lungs aching, and longing for more.

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148

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St. Martin's Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1429978961

ISBN 13

9781429978965

Thirst

By: Amelie Nothomb

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Thirst

By: Amelie Nothomb

The Gospel according to Amélie Jesus is perhaps the most universally known figure in the Western world, yet he remains one of the most obscure. In her reinterpretation of the story of the Passion and crucifixion, Nothomb gives voice to a transgressive Messiah, the son of God portrayed as deeply human. Not so much because of his broken chastity vows, rather because of his inability to forgive himself for the pointless and sadistic mise-en-scène that is the Passion. It all starts with the farcical trial at the court of Pontius Pilate. When the witnesses for the prosecution stand up one by one, they turn out to be, paradoxically, the very ones who were healed by Jesus' miracles, from the disgruntled beggar no longer able to solicit alms, to the man who, freed from satanic possession, now finds his life fatally boring. As the familiar, harrowing tale unfolds in all its dramatic intensity, Nothomb veers from the tragic to the comic, from deep compassion to cold mercilessness. She distils the essence of life down to its basic components – love, death and thirst – revealing that real human strength resides in the body, not in the spirit.

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Europa Editions UK

Published Date

ISBN 10

178770291X

ISBN 13

9781787702912

Strike Your Heart

By: Amelie Nothomb

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Strike Your Heart

By: Amelie Nothomb

The most destructive mechanisms of the soul, laid bare. 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. With her trademark wit, brevity, and tightly wound plots, Nothomb has devised a telling adult fable about human relationships and the mother-daughter bond.

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101

Publisher

Europa Editions UK

Published Date

ISBN 10

178770145X

ISBN 13

9781787701458

First Blood

A best book of 2021 - Le Parisien

By: Amelie Nothomb

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First Blood

A best book of 2021 - Le Parisien

By: Amelie Nothomb

The Republic of the Congo, 1964. A young man is facing a firing squad, preparing for his last moment on Earth. He reflects on his childhood with a distant mother, and the moments which have led to him finding himself staring death in the face. Patrick Nothomb is a young diplomat, aged 28, when he is taken hostage with thousands of others in Stanleyville (now Kisangani) by rebels. Over the course of four months, Nothomb has negotiated with his captors each and every day, saving the lives of 1500 citizens. Inspired by the life of her father, who died at the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic, Amélie Nothomb slips into his shoes to give voice to his story.

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Europa Editions UK

Published Date

ISBN 10

1787704483

ISBN 13

9781787704480

Fear and Trembling

A Novel

By: Amelie Nothomb

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Fear and Trembling

A Novel

By: Amelie Nothomb

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 where she was born is the fulfillment of a dream for Amélie; working there turns into comic nightmare. Alternately disturbing and hilarious, unbelievable and shatteringly convincing, Fear and Trembling will keep readers clutching tight to the pages of this taut little novel, caught up in the throes of fear, trembling, and, ultimately, delight.

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176

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St. Martin's Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1429978996

ISBN 13

9781429978996

The Character of Rain

A Novel

By: Amelie Nothomb

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The Character of Rain

A Novel

By: Amelie Nothomb

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148

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St. Martin's Press

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ISBN 10

1429978961

ISBN 13

9781429978965

Fear and Trembling

A Novel

By: Amelie Nothomb

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Fear and Trembling

A Novel

By: Amelie Nothomb

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176

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St. Martin's Press

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ISBN 10

1429978996

ISBN 13

9781429978996

Pétronille

By: Amelie Nothomb

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Pétronille

By: Amelie Nothomb

Amélie Nothomb is one of Europe's most successful and talked about authors. Hygeine and the Assassin, her first published novel, became a phenomenon, occupying a unique position in the world of French and international fiction. Delightful and witty, Pétronille is further proof of Nothomb's versatility and brilliance. With wry humor and a deceptively simple style, Pétronille tells an unusual story about twin abiding passions: one for champagne, and the other for a riotous friendship between her protagonist and Pétronille Fanto, a woman who refuses to drink alone. This is a funny, moving, "exotic" novel about travel, France, champagne, and, above all, about women's friendship. The on-again/off-again friendship between Pétronille and the main character in the book, who happens to be a writer by the name of Amélie Nothomb, gives the story its verve and the novel its heart. This is literary Thelma & Louise, with a little bit of French panache and a whole lot of champagne thrown in.

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Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

160945300X

ISBN 13

9781609453008

Loving Sabotage

By: Amelie Nothomb

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Loving Sabotage

By: Amelie Nothomb

I lived everything daring those 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 who seems already stripped of illusions. The daughter of diplomats posted to Peking in the mid-seventies, she charges about the grim confines of the gated government enclave battling tirelessly against boredom, concocting a fantasy life as rich as her surroundings are bleak. During one of her tours of duty in a war that has broken out in the ghetto between the children of various nations, she encounters a young Italian girl, Elena: beautiful, aloof, disdainful of silly games. The narrator is instantly infatuated and comes to realize the only fight worthy of her attention is shattering Elena's indifference. Provocative, outrageous, and caustically funny, Loving Sabotage recounts a precocious girl's understanding of the struggles and pains of adult life.

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148

Publisher

New Directions Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811217825

ISBN 13

9780811217828

The Book of Proper Names

A Novel

By: Amelie Nothomb

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The Book of Proper Names

A Novel

By: Amelie Nothomb

The Book of Proper Names is set in contemporary Paris, its main character an orphan named Plectrude. Before the child's birth her nineteen-year-old mother shoots and kills her nineteen-year-old (and somewhat feckless) father because she hates the names he's devised for their child--she fears they will doom their unborn child to mediocrity. The mother confesses openly to what she has done, and why. She is arrested and thrown into prison, where she gives birth to the child, names her, to everyone's bafflement, Plectrude--an obscure saint, and an albatross of a name--and then hangs herself. The novel therefore begins on the borderline between tragedy and absurdity, but as Plectrude grows--raised by a loving, indulgent, and eccentric aunt--it becomes a deeply moving and simultaneously chilling portrait of girlhood. Plectrude's great gift turns out to be for ballet, and she throws herself into dance as if her life depended upon it. Few novels have shown us the implacable and unforgiving world of ballet with more intuitive sympathy, yet also with a keen-eyed assessment of the true price of artistic perfection.. Inevitably, the doom hovering over Plectrude's life from birth returns to haunt her, and in the end she learns to survive in the only way she knows how--by committing an act of deadly self-preservation her mother would have perhaps understood best. The Book of Proper Names is vintage Amelie Nothomb--alternatively mordant and poignant, a portrait of adolescence that is fierce and funny at the same time. There is nothing mediocre either about Nothomb nor her creations.

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St. Martin's Press

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ISBN 10

1250091039

ISBN 13

9781250091031

Loving Sabotage

By: Amelie Nothomb

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Loving Sabotage

By: Amelie Nothomb

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148

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New Directions Publishing

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0811217825

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9780811217828

Book's by Amelie Nothomb

The Character of Rain

The Character of Rain

Thirst

Thirst

Strike Your Heart

Strike Your Heart

First Blood

First Blood

Fear and Trembling

Fear and Trembling

The Character of Rain

The Character of Rain

Fear and Trembling

Fear and Trembling

Pétronille

Pétronille

Loving Sabotage

Loving Sabotage

The Book of Proper Names

The Book of Proper Names

Loving Sabotage

Loving Sabotage

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