Briefwechsel. Aus Dem Franzosischen Von Stefanie Weiss

by Georges Simenon, André Gide

La correspondance d'écrivain entre Georges Simenon et André Gide, qui fut l'un des premiers fervents admirateurs de l'oeuvre du créateur du commissaire Maigret. "Rien de plus insolite, de plus étrange, de plus excitant dans l'histoire littéraire française, que la rencontre de ces deux tempéraments : le romancier et l'homme de lettres, l'instinct et le calcul, la spontanéité et la réflexion, l'écriture lâchée, presque automatique et le style raffiné, le somnambule faisant corps avec ses personnages et l'intellectuel tirant habilement les ficelles des siens. Nous tenons là un modèle emblématique de sympathie envers les contraires... Il ne faut pas considérer dans leur tandem si bizarre, un compagnonnage intellectuel, ni une entente amicale, mais une sorte d'expérience chimique où deux corps étrangers, profitant de ce qu'ils sont mis dans la même éprouvette provisoire, font voir à nu leurs caractères respectifs."Une expérience passionnante, où les deux hommes s'interrogent et se livrent "à cœur ouvert et sans trop de pudeur..."

187 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1977

About the author

Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (1903 – 1989) was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 500 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known as the creator of the fictional detective Jules Maigret.
Although he never resided in Belgium after 1922, he remained a Belgian citizen throughout his life.

Simenon was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. His oeuvre includes nearly 200 novels, over 150 novellas, several autobiographical works, numerous articles, and scores of pulp novels written under more than two dozen pseudonyms. Altogether, about 550 million copies of his works have been printed.

He is best known, however, for his 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. The first novel in the series, Pietr-le-Letton, appeared in 1931; the last one, Maigret et M. Charles, was published in 1972. The Maigret novels were translated into all major languages and several of them were turned into films and radio plays. Two television series (1960-63 and 1992-93) have been made in Great Britain.

During his "American" period, Simenon reached the height of his creative powers, and several novels of those years were inspired by the context in which they were written (Trois chambres à Manhattan (1946), Maigret à New York (1947), Maigret se fâche (1947)).

Simenon also wrote a large number of "psychological novels", such as La neige était sale (1948) or Le fils (1957), as well as several autobiographical works, in particular Je me souviens (1945), Pedigree (1948), Mémoires intimes (1981).

In 1966, Simenon was given the MWA's highest honor, the Grand Master Award.

In 2005 he was nominated for the title of De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian). In the Flemish version he ended 77th place. In the Walloon version he ended 10th place.