Stupeur et tremblements

In 1990, twenty-two-year-old Amélie joins the Tokyo offices of Yumimoto, a Japanese corporation, hoping to put her childhood love of Japan to professional use. Within weeks, the gap between her expectations and the reality of Japanese corporate hierarchy has become a chasm. She is demoted — then demoted again — each infraction smaller than the last, each punishment more humiliating than the previous one. Her tormentor is Fubuki Mori, her immediate superior: beautiful, impeccably composed, and relentlessly engaged in Amélie's systematic reduction. By the end of her year-long contract, Amélie has descended from the executive floor to cleaning the company bathrooms. The novel reads as a black comedy about cultural incomprehension and the violence of institutional hierarchy — but it is also an account of a strange mutual fascination between Amélie and Fubuki. Winner of the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française 1999. The title, 'fear and trembling,' refers to the extreme deference historically owed to the Japanese Emperor.