Georges Simenon (1903 - 1989)
Related: fiction - detective - pulp - literature - France - Belgium
Novels: Monsieur Hire (1933)
[K]itsch's enormous profits are a source of temptation to the avant-garde itself, and its members have not always resisted this temptation. Ambitious writers and artists will modify their work under the pressure of kitsch, if they do not succumb to it entirely. And then those puzzling borderline cases appear, such as the popular novelist, Simenon, in France, and Steinbeck in this country. The net result is always to the detriment of true culture in any case. --Avant-garde and Kitsch, Clement Greenberg, 1939
Les fiançailles de M.Hire (1933) - Georges Simenon
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Biography
Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (February 13, 1903 - September 4, 1989) was a Belgian writer, who wrote in French.
Simenon, who was born in Liège, established himself in Paris in 1922. He travelled widely and stayed in the United States for ten years, from 1945 until 1955. In 1957, he moved to Switzerland.
Simenon was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century. He was able to write 60 to 80 pages a day. During his lifetime, he published about 450 novels and short stories. He is best known, however, for his 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Simenon [Aug 2005]