The UK’s Independent interview and profile Belgian novelist Amélie Nothomb, author of Fear and Trembling. I’ve not read the book but the film adaptation has some of the funniest deadpan observations of Japanese hierarchical bullshit I’ve ever seen. One critic likened the book to “a poison-pen letter to Japan” while another labelled the film “a jaundiced view of Japan that makes Lost In Translation seem like the epitome of cross-cultural understanding”. The interview reveals the author to be somewhat on the eccentric side, which might give succour to her ‘culturally-sensitive’ detractors. But it also reveals what makes her tick and how bad experiences can lead to such good literature/cinema:

I began to think ‘now, old girl, what will you do with your life? Your ambition was to become Japanese and now that’s impossible… Except speaking Japanese, you can do nothing’. Without that Japanese humiliation, I would never have dared to show my work. But as I was already humiliated by the company, I thought well, what could be worse?