For Japan Fortnight, Amélie Nothomb is the guest of L’Indépendant

For the 3^e edition of the Quinzaine du Japon in Occitanie, from November 8 to 22, L’Indépendant creates the event by welcoming for two days Amélie Nothomb, successful writer and true ambassador of Japan. Having grown up in this country until the age of 5 and returning there in the early 1990s to work, the novelist draws on her memories to inform many of her works including “Stupors and Trembling” (1999), “ Metaphysics of Tubes” (2000) or “Neither Eve nor Adam” (2007) and “La Nostalgie Heureuse” (2013).

In Carcassonne and Perpignan

On Tuesday, November 12, Amélie Nothomb will be in Carcassonne, at the Hôtel de la Cité, with the Breithaupt bookstore from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. for a signing session open to all.

The next day, Wednesday November 13, the Belgian author will be present in Perpignan at the newspaper L’Indépendant as editor-in-chief for a day. A signing session will take place from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at our premises with the Torcatis bookstore.

These meetings with his audience will be an opportunity to talk about his literary comeback marked by the release of two books on Japan.

“The Impossible Return” and “Eternal Japan”

“The Impossible Return”, the 33rd novel by the writer published by Albin Michel, is a diary. The Belgian writer serves as a guide to a friend “for a quarter of a century”photographer Pep Beni, between Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo and the famous Mount Fuji, in spring 2023. A trip of around ten days synonymous with diving into the Japanese life of Amélie Nothomb “by forbidding nostalgia”and the French photographer’s initiatory immersion with Japanese culture, manners and landscapes. Far from Western landmarks, sometimes giving rise to comical situations for the two travelers with very different temperaments.

“Eternal Japan”, is an adaptation of a series of podcasts entitled “Japan, the flowers of a floating world” broadcast on the Audible platform in 2023. With the writer and documentary director Laureline Amanieux, Amélie Nothomb evokes Japanese mythology, traditions and folklore. Notions transmitted by the Belgian’s nanny, an essential figure in her childhood. A conversation between the two women carried out in the Japanese garden of the Albert-Kahn departmental museum, on the outskirts of Paris.

Two types of trips in this island country but each time the look of Amélie Nothomb, a “Failed Japanese” as she defines herself. The opportunity to chat during a special moment with her on November 12 and 13.