Portal:Literature/Biography archive/2007, Week 7

Georges Simenon (February 13, 1903–September 4, 1989) was a Belgian writer who wrote in French. Simenon was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. His oeuvre include nearly 200 novels, over 150 novellas, several autobiographical works, numerous articles, and scores of pulp novels written under more than two dozen pseudonyms. Altogether, about 550 million copies of his works have been printed.

He is best known, however, for his 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. The first novel in the series, Pietr-le-Letton, appeared in 1931; the last one, Maigret et M. Charles, was published in 1972. The Maigret novels were translated into all major languages and several of them were turned into a film (starting with La nuit du carrefour, adapted for the screen by Jean Renoir as early as 1932).