Books: Belgian writer’s ‘impossible’ love affair with Japan

PARIS — Amelie Nothomb, the acclaimed Belgian novelist, has long displayed a fascination with Japan, where she lived as a child and later worked before becoming one of the most popular authors writing in French, with 33 novels to her name in as many years.

Nothomb’s most recent work, “L’impossible retour” (“The Impossible Return”) explores her experience of returning to Japan after many years, shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic, only to find that the complexities of Japanese culture are more difficult to assimilate than she had remembered.