Amélie Nothomb: thirst

Finalist for the Goncourt Prize, a worldwide bestseller with 450,000 copies sold! *Thirst*, the new work by Amélie Nothomb—who creates a sensation in the literary world every year with her masterful blend of cruelty and humor—has been published by Open Books, translated by French literature scholar Professor Lee Sang-hae. Nothomb, who debuted at the age of twenty-five with *The Health of a Murderer* to acclaim from critics and readers alike, is also famous for consistently publishing one work a year for over twenty years. The protagonist of this novel is Jesus Christ. Furthermore, the story depicts events from the trial to the crucifixion and the resurrection from Jesus's first-person perspective. While this may seem like a somewhat unexpected choice for Nothomb, her concise prose, filled with humor, wit, and irony, remains as sharp as ever. As is always the case with Nothomb's novels, *Thirst* is a short story that does not exceed 200 pages. However, it can be seen as a masterpiece that begins with the most basic and physical need of thirst and extends to love, pleasure, pain, hope, faith, and death. Furthermore, it demonstrates the author's inquisitive nature regarding language by connecting Jesus's declaration of "I am thirsty" while hanging on the cross with the fact that there is no word in French equivalent to the antonym for "thirst"—namely, "quenching thirst." The trial, crucifixion, and resurrection trial, written from Jesus's first-person perspective, begin. Thirty-seven beneficiaries of Jesus's miracles appear and offer absurd testimonies about how those miracles ruined their lives. The first miracle was turning water into wine when the wine ran out at the wedding in Cana.

Korean title: 갈증

Korean author: 아멜리 노통브

Korean publisher: 열린책들

ISBN-13: 9788932921938