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...

Amelie, a well-intentioned and eager young westerner, goes to Japan to spend a year working at the Yumimoto Corporation. Returning to the land she was born is the fulfilment of a dream for Amelie, but working there turns into a comic nightmare of terror and self-abasement. Disturbing, hilarious and totally convincing, Fear and Trembling displays an elegant and shrewd understanding...

In this taut tour-de-force of a novel, an international bestseller, a young Western woman named Amelie spends a year working at a Japanese corporation. She soon learns that at the Yumimoto Corporation, hierarchy means everything. Keep to your place and you survive; break ranks and you will be broken. The determined but hapless Amelie makes mistake after mistake, not least...

The Japanese believe that until the age of three, children are gods, each one a 'Lord Child'. On their third birthday, they fall from grace and join the rest of humanity. Narrated by a child—from the age of two and a half up until her third birthday—this novel reveals that the move from deity to ordinary member of the human...

Tired of traditional reality shows, the television audience wants blood, literally. One day, while out taking a walk in the Jardin des Plantes, Pannonique finds herself piled into a cattle-truck. Suddenly, it seems, anyone can be picked up and hauled off to the studio without a moment's notice. Sulphuric Acid tells the story of this reality TV death camp which...