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Georges Simenon
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Georges Simenon
Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (French: [ʒɔʁʒ simnɔ̃]; 12/13 February 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a Belgian writer who created the fictional detective Jules Maigret. One of the most prolific and successful authors of the 20th century, he published around 400 novels (including 192 under his own name), 21 volumes of memoirs and many short stories, selling over 500 million copies.
Apart from his detective fiction, he achieved critical acclaim for his literary novels, which he called romans durs (hard novels). Among his literary admirers were Max Jacob, François Mauriac and André Gide. Gide wrote, “I consider Simenon a great novelist, perhaps the greatest, and the most genuine novelist that we have had in contemporary French literature.”
Born and raised in Liège, Belgium, Simenon lived for extended periods in France (1922–1945), the United States (1946–1955) and finally Switzerland (1957–1989). Much of his work is semi-autobiographical, inspired by his childhood and youth in Liège, extensive travels in Europe and the world, wartime experiences, troubled marriages, and numerous love affairs.
Critics such as John Banville have praised Simenon's novels for their psychological insights and vivid evocation of time and place. Among his most notable works are The Saint-Fiacre Affair (1932), Monsieur Hire's Engagement (1933), Act of Passion (1947), The Snow was Dirty (1948) and The Cat (1967).
Simenon was born at 26 Rue Léopold (Liège) (now number 24) to Désiré Simenon and Henriette Brüll. Désiré Simenon worked in an accounting office at an insurance company and had married Henriette in April 1902. Simenon was born either at 11.30 pm on Thursday 12 February 1903 (according to the birth certificate) or just after midnight on Friday 13th (the date possibly being falsified on the certificate due to superstition).
The Simenon family was of Walloon and Flemish ancestry, settling in the Belgian Limburg in the seventeenth century. His mother's family was of Flemish, Dutch and German descent. One of his mother's most notorious ancestors was Gabriel Brühl, a criminal who preyed on Limburg from the 1720s until he was hanged in 1743. Later Simenon would use Brühl as one of his many pen names.
In April 1905, two years after Simenon's birth, the family moved to 3 rue Pasteur (now 25 rue Georges Simenon) in Liège's Outremeuse neighbourhood. Simenon's brother Christian was born in September 1906 and eventually became their mother's favourite child, which Simenon resented. The young Simenon, however, idolised his father and later claimed to have partly modelled Maigret's temperament on him.
At the age of three, Simenon learned to read at the Ecole Guardienne run by the Sisters of Notre Dame. Then, between 1908 and 1914, he attended the Institut Saint-André, run by the Christian Brothers.
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Georges Simenon
Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (French: [ʒɔʁʒ simnɔ̃]; 12/13 February 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a Belgian writer who created the fictional detective Jules Maigret. One of the most prolific and successful authors of the 20th century, he published around 400 novels (including 192 under his own name), 21 volumes of memoirs and many short stories, selling over 500 million copies.
Apart from his detective fiction, he achieved critical acclaim for his literary novels, which he called romans durs (hard novels). Among his literary admirers were Max Jacob, François Mauriac and André Gide. Gide wrote, “I consider Simenon a great novelist, perhaps the greatest, and the most genuine novelist that we have had in contemporary French literature.”
Born and raised in Liège, Belgium, Simenon lived for extended periods in France (1922–1945), the United States (1946–1955) and finally Switzerland (1957–1989). Much of his work is semi-autobiographical, inspired by his childhood and youth in Liège, extensive travels in Europe and the world, wartime experiences, troubled marriages, and numerous love affairs.
Critics such as John Banville have praised Simenon's novels for their psychological insights and vivid evocation of time and place. Among his most notable works are The Saint-Fiacre Affair (1932), Monsieur Hire's Engagement (1933), Act of Passion (1947), The Snow was Dirty (1948) and The Cat (1967).
Simenon was born at 26 Rue Léopold (Liège) (now number 24) to Désiré Simenon and Henriette Brüll. Désiré Simenon worked in an accounting office at an insurance company and had married Henriette in April 1902. Simenon was born either at 11.30 pm on Thursday 12 February 1903 (according to the birth certificate) or just after midnight on Friday 13th (the date possibly being falsified on the certificate due to superstition).
The Simenon family was of Walloon and Flemish ancestry, settling in the Belgian Limburg in the seventeenth century. His mother's family was of Flemish, Dutch and German descent. One of his mother's most notorious ancestors was Gabriel Brühl, a criminal who preyed on Limburg from the 1720s until he was hanged in 1743. Later Simenon would use Brühl as one of his many pen names.
In April 1905, two years after Simenon's birth, the family moved to 3 rue Pasteur (now 25 rue Georges Simenon) in Liège's Outremeuse neighbourhood. Simenon's brother Christian was born in September 1906 and eventually became their mother's favourite child, which Simenon resented. The young Simenon, however, idolised his father and later claimed to have partly modelled Maigret's temperament on him.
At the age of three, Simenon learned to read at the Ecole Guardienne run by the Sisters of Notre Dame. Then, between 1908 and 1914, he attended the Institut Saint-André, run by the Christian Brothers.
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