The enthralling international bestseller. We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. RenA(c)e, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, RenA(c)e is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the buildingas tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence. Then thereas Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter. Paloma and RenA(c)e hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Palomaas trust and to see through RenA(c)eas timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.

1969年齣生，本身為哲學教授， 以《刺蝟的優雅》成為當代法國知名暢銷作傢。並獲法國外交部補助，於2008年月日本京都的關西日法交流會館進行駐地交流，著手第三本小說的寫作。