The Guardian: Interview with Amélie Nothomb, author of Tokyo Fiancée

It takes me a while to recognise the short, dark-haired woman who comes to fetch me from the lobby at the publisher Albin Michel. She advances towards me with a smile, shakes my hand and asks if I'd like to follow her to the office we'll be using for the interview. There's something about the way she says "we" which troubles me. Amélie Nothomb may be a massive star in the French literary firmament, but I never imagined she was the kind of star who would insist a PR should stay in the room during the interview. Surely my suggestion that Nothomb should read some of her work for the Books podcast, a suggestion politely declined well in advance of our meeting, was not so outrageous that she feels the need for this chaperone. It is only when this pale, neat woman composes herself for the start of the interview that I am finally sure she is no PR, but is in fact the person I have come to meet.

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