Tokyo Fiancée

Tokyo Fiancée (published in French as Ni d'Ève ni d'Adam) is the sixteenth novel by the French-language Belgian writer Amélie Nothomb. It appeared on 20 August 2007 from Éditions Albin Michel and is an autobiographical work that recounts the romance the author had in Tokyo with a young Japanese man from a well-to-do family, whom she tutored in French when she was twenty-one.

The story follows a Belgian woman born in Japan who returns to Tokyo, the city of her childhood, hoping to settle there. Believing that the most effective way to learn Japanese is to teach French, she finds students and meets Rinri, a university student of French. Teacher and pupil become friends and lovers, and the relationship brings cultural differences into focus: she enjoys Japanese food while he prefers Western cuisine, and the Japanese traditions she admires hold little interest for him. Their bond also serves as a way for the narrator to recover memories of her Japanese childhood. As both deepen their command of each other's language, Rinri proposes marriage. She accepts but feels unsure of her own feelings, and when her contract ends she returns to Europe without contacting him. Many years later she goes back to Japan to promote a book and meets him again.

The novel was nominated for the Prix Goncourt and the Prix Renaudot in 2007 and won the Prix de Flore that year. A film adaptation directed by Stefan Liberski followed, with Belgian actress Pauline Étienne playing Amélie.