The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery

Summary

Renee, the concierge of an elegant hotel in the center of Paris, is short, ugly, and plump. She has bunions on her feet. She is cantankerous and addicted to television soaps. Her only genuine attachment is to her cat. In short, she is everything society expects ... but Renee has a secret.

In an apartment upstairs, precocious, intelligent twelve-year-old Paloma has come to terms with life's seeming futility, deciding to end her own life on the day of her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue hiding her extraordinary intelligence behind a mask of mediocrity, acting the part of an average pre-teen and an ordinary and compliant daughter.

Paloma and Renee hide their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. But everything changes when a new tenant arrives, a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu.

This is a moving, witty, and redemptive novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog is a New York Times Bestseller, and winner of four French literary prizes, with sales of over a million copies in French. The Elegance of the Hedgehog is Muriel Barbery's second novel. Her first, Une gourmandise, has been translated into twelve languages and will be released in English in 2009.

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Praise

"The intelligent Muriel Barbery has served readers well by giving us the gently satirical, exceptionally winning and inevitably bittersweet Elegance of the Hedgehog." — Washington Post

"An exquisite book in the form of a philosophical fable that has enchanted hundreds of thousands of readers." — Elle (Italy)

"Clever, informative and moving...this is an admirable novel." — The Observer

"The novel wins over its fans with a life-affirming message, a generous portion of heart and Barbery's frequently wicked sense of humor." — Time Magazine

"Hedgehog or Prozac? At first, the question may seem absurd. But it becomes less so when one learns that a Parisian psychotherapist is prescribing Muriel Barbery's bestselling novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog to her patients. 'Yes, I am prescribing it, and I do mean prescribing. This book can do a lot of good ... [it's] a real toolbox that one can look into to resolve one's problems.' ... And indeed, all women, at least once, ... have lived through the kind of psychological self-denigration that Renee inflicts on herself in the opening scene of the book. The ultimate celebration of every person's invisible part." — L'Express (France)

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