Hygiene and the Assassin

Hygiene and the Assassin (Hygiène de l'assassin) is the first novel by the Belgian writer Amélie Nothomb, published in French in 1992 by Albin Michel. Written almost entirely as dialogue, it is a sharp, claustrophobic portrait of a hostile man and the people who try to get close to him.

The protagonist, Prétextat Tach, is a famous novelist who is told he has an illness invented by the author herself, the "Elzenveiverplatz syndrome," a form of cartilage cancer, and that he has only two months to live. Journalists quickly line up to secure an interview that will give them a scoop. The reader soon sees, however, that Tach is an obese, misanthropic, acerbic, intolerant and misogynistic man who refuses any question about his private life and steers each conversation to his own advantage, leaving his interviewers humiliated.

The plot turns on the arrival of Nina, a little-known journalist who confronts the novelist directly. In a closed room charged with mystery, the interview becomes a duel: Nina challenges Tach's misogyny and confronts him with the demons of his past. The book plays with ambiguity and builds toward a disturbing turn that gives the title its meaning.

The novel won the René-Fallet and Alain-Fournier prizes in 1993. For the twentieth anniversary of its publication, the French manuscript was issued in a numbered edition in 2012. It also served as the basis for a 1999 film adaptation directed by François Ruggieri.