Am'lie Nothomb

Shaun Whiteside

'Concise, philosophical, enigmatic, Nothomb's writing is highly personal and beyond fault ... It is a belated treat that her books are finally being published in the UK.' Guardian When lonely sixteen-year-old university student Blanche meets the dazzling Christa, she is swept off her feet. Christa, who talks freely of her impoverished background in the Eastern Belgian town of Malmedy, claims to work in a bar with her boyfriend, a David Bowie lookalike called Detlev. When Blanche's mother, who finds her own daughter rather colourless, bookish and dull, is also dazzled by Christa though, she soon invites her to stay at the family house. Suddenly Christa can do no wrong and, as Blanche's parents scour their address-books for long-lost friends to invite to dinner to meet the newcomer, their friendship sours and Blanche's already negligible self-confidence goes into a steep decline. With all the characteristics of Ameacute;lie Nothomb's unique fictional landscapes, Antechrista is a funny, dark and revealing journey through female friendship and rivalry.

Antichrista

Tells the fictional story of a reality TV death camp show which becomes an obsession with the French public, and how it is played out in the media.

Sulphuric Acid

Sulphuric Acid tells the story of a reality TV death camp, which has become the nation's obsession - an amoral spectacle played out through the media. It is a blackly funny and shocking satire on the modern predilection for reality television and celebrity, in which the audience at home develops a taste for blood.

The daughter of a diplomat posted to Peking in the mid 1970s, our unnamed narrator charges about her tightly-enclosed world on her bicycle as she begins to understand the struggles and pains of adult life.

Am'lie Nothomb

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