Georges Simenon
Simenon is a redirect to this article. For the screenwriter and director, see Marc Simenon.
Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (* 12 February 1903 in Liège; † 4 September 1989 in Lausanne) was a Belgian writer. He became known primarily as the author of a total of 75 detective novels around the figure of Commissioner Maigret. In addition, Simenon wrote over 100 other novels and 150 short stories under his name, as well as nearly 200 dime novels and more than 1000 short stories under various pseudonyms. He wrote in French and used mainly the pseudonym Georges Sim until his success under his own name.
Simenon began his writing career at the age of barely sixteen as a journalist in his hometown of Liège. In the 1920s, he developed into an extremely prolific author of light fiction in Paris. The novels about the character Maigret were the first works Simenon published under his own name in the 1930s and led to his breakthrough as a writer. From then on, Simenon created a vast oeuvre of crime novels and psychological novels that made him one of the most translated and widely read writers of the 20th century. Despite his great commercial success and numerous enthusiastic individual voices, literary critics were undecided about his classification. Even with the higher literary ambitions of his "non-Maigret" novels, he did not overcome his reputation as an author of light fiction.
Simenon's writing style is characterized by a high degree of vividness and dense atmosphere, despite the limited vocabulary and the programmatic renunciation of literary finesse. In his own words, his work is about the "naked human being", the person who emerges from behind all the masks. Simenon's own life story flowed into his fictional works as well as into several autobiographies. His private life was erratic, his two marriages were accompanied by numerous affairs. Often travelling, he had 33 changing residences in Belgium, France, Canada, the USA and Switzerland in the course of his life.
Georges Simenon, 1965
Works and film adaptations
→ Main article: List of Georges Simenon's works and List of film adaptations of Georges Simenon's works.
Documentary
- The Century of Georges Simenon. Documentary, France, 2013, 52 min., written and directed by Pierre Assouline, produced by Cinétévé, Les Films du Carré, RTBF Secteur Documentaires, INA, arte France, Simenon.tv, first broadcast: 23 February 2014 on arte, synopsis; retrieved 26 Dec. 2020.
