Maigret author dies

Press, 7 September 1989, Page 8

Maigret author dies

NZPA-AP Lausanne Georges Simenon, the widely read author of more than 80 books featuring a Paris police, inspector, Maigret, has died at his Swiss home, aged 86.

Simenon had been ailing for some time. The cause of death was not immediately known. Maigret was a pipesmoking chief inspector who sought to understand criminals rather than condemn them.

Though Simenon was best known for the Maigret series, he preferred some 132 nonMaigrets — psychological, sometimes nightmarish novels on people in crisis

that put his name into literary encyclopedias. His books were tran-

slated into 55 languages, in 40 countries. In the Soviet Union, some of his novels had initial editions of 500,000 copies. His revealing “Letter To My Mother” is obligatory reading in French-lan-guage school lessons. At the start of his career, Simenon also wrote about 300 pulp fiction novels under more than 20 pseudonyms. A 1973 survey by Unesco said sales of Simenon books totalled more than half a billion worldwide. The books provided the basis for 52 feature movies and more than 300 television films.

About 50 biographies have been written about Simenon.