Amélie Nothomb

Frequently asked questions

• Why does Nothomb publish one novel every September without fail?

  She writes three to four books a year and publishes only the one she considers best. The annual September date is her contract with readers and with herself — a discipline she has maintained for over thirty years. The others are kept in manuscript or destroyed.

• What is her daily writing routine?

  She wakes at four in the morning and writes until eight. The session is accompanied by half a litre of black tea, consumed as a ritual. She has described these four hours as the only part of the day that belongs entirely to her — everything after is the world's.

• Why does Japan appear so often in her novels?

  Nothomb's family posted to Japan when she was two and a half years old, and she has described it as a paradise she was forced to leave. She learned Japanese, formed attachments that lasted decades, and returned repeatedly — the country appears in at least five of her novels across different periods of her life.

• What does it mean that she was made a Baroness?

  In 2015, King Philippe of Belgium granted her a title of nobility — she became Baroness Nothomb. The award recognized her contribution to Belgian literature and culture. She had already received the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française (1999) and would later receive the Prix Renaudot (2021).

• How many books has she written that were never published?

  She began writing at twelve and finished seventeen novels before submitting anything. Since then she has written more than she publishes annually. By her own accounts, many dozens of manuscripts exist in private — she selects one per year and keeps or destroys the rest.

• What prizes has she won?

  Her major prizes include the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française (1999, for Mercure), the Prix de Flore, the Prix René Vautier, and the Prix Renaudot (2021, for Premier Sang). She has been nominated for numerous others across a career spanning more than thirty years.

• Is her fiction autobiographical?

  Much of it draws directly from her life — the Japan novels, the triptych of Premier Sang (her father), Psychopompe (herself), and Tant mieux (her mother) are all closely autobiographical. She does not call them memoirs but novels; the distinction matters to her. She writes about herself, she has said, because it is the only subject she fully trusts.

• Where should a new reader start?

  Stupeur et tremblements (Fear and Trembling) is the most widely read entry point — it won the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française and distils her concerns (hierarchy, humiliation, Japan, women in institutional settings) into her most accessible form. Hygiène de l'assassin (Hygiene and the Assassin), her debut, is a sharper and stranger starting point for readers who prefer dialogue-heavy psychological novels.