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The 2003 Award

Fear and Trembling

by Amélie Nothomb

Translated from the French by Adriana Hunter

 

Nominated by:

  • Katona Jozsef County Library, Kecskemet, Hungary

Fear and Trembling by Amelie Nothomb

Publisher of Nominated Edition: St. Martin's Press ISBN 0312272189

 

the complete A-Z listing of nominated authors.
ABOUT THE BOOK
According to ancient Japanese protocol, foreigners deigning to approach the emperor were to adopt a tone of fear and trembling. Terror and self-abasement conveyed respect. Amélie, well-intentioned, eager, young and Western goes to Japan to spend a year working at the Yumimoto Corporation. Returning to the land where she was born is the fulfilment of a dream for Amélie: working there turns into a comic nightmare.
Poor Amélie can do nothing right. She starts at the bottom of the corporate ladder and immediately reveals a genius for working her way down. She delivers mail, serves tea, updates calendars, photocopies the same pages a thousand times; her job description, fluid at best, runs relentlessly downstream. But of Amélie's many failings and ill-advised breaches of protocol, the worst by far is becoming infatuated with her immediate superior, the beautiful, impeccable, and implacable Miss Mori.
Fear and Trembling is alternately disturbing and hilarious, at its core lies a clash of wills and a war of nerves.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Belgian by nationality, Amélie Nothomb was born in Kobe, Japan, and currently lives in Paris. She is the author of eight novels, translated into fourteen languages. Fear and Trembling won the Grand Prix of the Académie Française and the Prix Internet du Livre.

Find out more about the author on the following websites:

Excerpt from the novel

Review of the novel

About the author

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