Born in Etterbeek, Brussels, in 1966, Amélie Nothomb spent her childhood moving across continents — Japan, China, the United States, Bangladesh, Burma, Laos — as the daughter of a Belgian diplomat. Japan was the country that marked her most deeply: she has called it the paradise she was expelled from when her family left. She began writing at age twelve, producing manuscripts she has described as unspeakably bad, and completed seventeen novels before publishing a single one. Her debut, Hygiène...
Les champignons de Paris
Les champignons de Paris
Synopsis
Sidoine is an aging Parisian who has made a career of defrauding the friends of the recently deceased — presenting himself at their doors in the week after a death, inventing a debt or an unclaimed gift, and collecting money from grief-softened people before they can think clearly. One morning, Dries — a Dutch nephew of one of his recent victims — arrives in Paris on his first visit to the capital and disrupts Sidoine's routines. When the two share a dose of hallucinogenic mushrooms, the Parisian fraudster and the Dutch visitor find themselves on an unexpected journey through the city. A short satirical novel originally serialized in nine episodes in Charlie Hebdo between July and August 2007, Les champignons de Paris is a comedy of Parisian manners and altered states — lighter in tone than most of Nothomb's work but no less precise in its dissection of social performance.
Vibe
Genres
Characters
SidoineProtagonist
An aging Parisian confidence artist who makes his living defrauding the bereaved; his routines are disrupted by an unexpectedly direct Dutch visitor.
DriesSupporting
A Dutch nephew visiting Paris for the first time — his directness and unfamiliarity with Parisian social codes make him an unlikely equal to Sidoine.
Places
Edition
Les champignons de ParisUnknown, Augu
