The Book of Proper Names

Description

The Book of Proper Names is the story of the hapless orphan girl, Plectrude. Raised by her aunt, and unaware of the dark secret behind her past, she is a troubled but dreamy child who is both blessed and cursed by her intoxicating eyes. Discovered to have enormous gifts as a dancer, she is accepted at Paris's most prestigious ballet school, where she devotes herself to artistic perfection, until her body can take no more. In a brilliantly succinct story of haunted adolescence and lost mothers, Nothomb propels the narrative forward until Plectrude is forced to take command of her own fate.

Belgian by nationality, Am lie Nothomb was born in Kobe, Japan, and currently lives in Paris. Described by Time Magazine as 'prolific and ingenious', she is the best-selling author of thirteen novels, translated into thirty languages. Fear and Trembling won the Grand Prix of the Acad mie Fran aise and the Prix Internet du Livre. The Book of Proper Names was originally published in France, as Robert Des Noms Propres, where it has sold over 250,000 copies.

"Exquisite... Amelie Nothomb is such an utter astonishment, the shock of reading her for the first time is like realising you have missed a whole movement, or a century, in the scheme of things.' Scotland on Sunday; 'She makes the most unlikely things possible... her tale is strangely dreamlike. You know it can't possibly be real but it's utterly believable. [You] want to start again the moment the book finishes.' The Times; 'A disturbing, fantastical moral tale for our times... She captures the crucial aspects of growing up with a light yet darkly comic touch' Guardian"