Biographical note

Georges Simenon - born 1903 in Liege, Belgium, produced works of extraordinary psychological perception, providing compelling evocations of milieu and atmosphere, he probed the depths of lust, envy, resentment and lifelong obsession, but revealed without passing judgement. Admired by Gide, praised by people as diverse a Jean Cocteau, T. S. Eliot, Henry Miller, Somerset Maugham and John Le Carre, and with close relations with the film world, his own life was as fascinating as his works. He was reputed to have moved house 37 times in his life, and he once claimed in an interview to have made love to 10,000 women. The last 23 years he spent as a recluse, with only one companion, and wrote 21 volumes of memoirs.