Amélie Nothomb the mysterious writer who continues to intrigue her readers
On November 18, Belgian writer Amélie Nothomb in Cognac, France received the 2023 Jean Monnet for her novel The Book of Sisters. This prize for European literature is awarded annually to a book written or translated into French. Nothomb is the second Belgian to win the award, following Pierre Mertens in 1996.
Amélie Nothomb is a well-known writer in the French part of Belgium with an international reputation. She has become famous for her unique style of prose with eccentric and aesthetic characters that mixes the noir novel with the aesthetics of a surrealist film
She is always seen in dresses so black that they catch the light of day and transform it into beautiful words that illuminate the blank pages. This writer’s head is often adorned with gigantic hats, some with wide brims, others with high tops. It seems that the hats have the function of keeping the writer anchored to the earth. She has golden-brown eyes that always look tired of having so many ideas to fill her eager readers. Her lips are always pouting red, making her look like a member of the Addams Family.
She was born in 1966 in Etterbeek (Belgium) and her birth name is Fabienne-Claire. She belongs to a noble Belgian family, her father being the belgian diplomat Patrick Nothomb and her grandfather the politician Charles-Ferdinand Nothomb. Although she was born in Belgium, she considers that her literary self was born in Kobe, Japan. Several times she comments that the separation from Japan was “a wrenching separation for me”. She spent most of her childhood and adolescence loving its culture and being a clear inspiration in her novels, after returning from Japan she studied philology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
Her first book publishing was Hygiène de l’assassin whose peculiarity is that it is written in dialogue with a character who in the course of the story becomes an unpleasant being for the reader. As a tribute to the characters created by the Marquis de Sade. After that followed a series of novels that were acclaimed for their eccentric characters and absurd plots.
In 2023 Nothomb received the 2023 Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature for her novel The Book of Sisters (Le livre des soeurs). She talks about her ideas with the typical face of a gothic novel character in the French literary magazine Actualitté.
She says that for her, her books “are my children” because that is where my soul is transmitted from generation to generation. She looks the journalist in the eye and comments that she “chooses her words with precision”. She enjoys the whole creative process behind the writing.
Her family is also peculiar as the writer of the black dress says that she takes refuge to her sister for the whole creative process and has absolute confidence in her. In an interview with Actualitté, she says that her sister helped her a lot in her lonely childhood and comments that “the world was my sister: without her there would have been no one”. She was never able to make firm friendships because her travels with her parents were intruded by political visions and suspicions that forced her family to leave.
Music has been an important part of the author’s life and she prefers it to books. She says that music “opens the doors of the mind” and allows to answer questions that otherwise would not be answered. Musical language was her faithful companion in her teenage years. She regrets not having the musical skills to create beautiful melodies and says that “I don’t have an ounce of musical skill”.
A comical situation she suffers from is her relationship with the French Academy. She says she has a smooth relationship with the Belgian Academy but with the French Academy it is a different story: “In Belgium one day, you receive a phone call and presto. For the French Academy, it’s the court of Louis XIV, and courting 40 immortals seems very tiring to me and I’m not at all sure I want it. “
Nothomb continues to write books and to make her readers doubt whether she is Belgian or Japanese. While her exotic style makes the curious flock to read her books.