Simenon

The work of Simenon, the character of the novelist, summon the most used clichés: the typewriter; so prolific that the abundance itself generates the distrust of "writers"; flatness of style; stereotypical characters; dominated by the massive Maigret, forever enclosed in his overcoat with the velvet collar, his pipe and his heavy step...
None of this is true. Simenon is of the same ilk as Maupassant (whose work was entirely written in about ten years), an apparently simple writer, a teller of tales. But one which the reader can discover indefinitely, taking up one of his books, and surely not being able to put it down again until the end. Simenon is also the novelist of places, cities, countries, and countrysides. One of the most convenient ways to greet the centenary of his birth and to consider this considerable work, is to follow the trail from the places he lived to those where he had his characters live...