Synopses & Reviews
In her twenty-eighth novel in as many years, best-selling Belgian novelist and international literary superstar Amélie Nothomb takes on a story for the ages: the life of Jesus.
In a first-person voice as droll and irreverent as it is wise, Nothomb narrates Jesus’s final days, from his trial to his crucifixion to the resurrection.
Amid asides about his relationships with his mother and Judas, his love for Mary Magdalene, and his many miracles, we find a man struggling with his humanity and his exceptional nature, straddling the line between human and deity, the son of a formless, omnipotent creator in the fallible form of a man.
Review
“Thirst is Amélie Nothomb’s best novel since The Character of Rain... With humor, Nothomb philosophizes about the body, love, pleasure, human ingratitude, suffering, hope, faith, death.” Les Echos
Review
“Amélie Nothomb offers up a lovely consideration — a meditation? — on what it means to have a body.” La Croix
Review
“Nothomb has managed to create a completely unbelievable mixture between Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and Monty Python’s The Life of Brian. I’ve never read anything like it!” France Inter
About the Author
Amélie Nothomb was born in Japan to Belgian parents in 1967. She lives in Paris. Since her debut on the French literary scene a little more than a decade ago, she has published a novel a year, every year. Her edgy fiction, unconventional thinking, and public persona have combined to transform her into a worldwide literary sensation. She is the recipient of the French Academy's 1999 Grand Prix for the Novel, the René-Fallet, Alain-Fournier, and Jean-Giono prizes.
A
lison Anderson's translations for Europa Editions include novels by Sélim Nassib, Amélie Nothomb, and Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt. She is the translator of Muriel Barbery's bestselling novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog.