THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG

THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG by MURIEL BARBERY

This wonderful story is about two women. Renee is 54 years old. She has worked as a concierge in the Rue de Grenelle in Paris for 27 years.
Renee describes herself with the words "I am a widow, small and ugly, chubby. I have corns and in certain hours of the morning, I have a bad breath. I did not study, I was always poor, unremarkable and insignificant".

One day Renee meets Paloma. The girl is 12 years old, she has rich parents and lives with them in the same city palace where Renee works. Both of them are very intelligent and far smarter than relatives, friends, acquaintances.
This intelligence makes them very lonely. Paloma writes her thoughts in a diary and decides to take her own life at the end of the current school year.

This is funny and sometimes bitter novel tells us a story about two interesting characters - about their lives, neighbors, music, art and philosophy. The Elegance of the Hedgehog is the highly entertaining and touching story of two outsiders, a wonderful novel about the search for beauty in the world.

The message of The Elegance of the Hedgehog novel is very simple: All beauty of our world hides in each one of us, no matter where it comes from, no matter where he goes.

Renee has much common with a hedgehog? She is too appears bulky and prickly, but sometimes can surprise everyone with inner beauty.

Muriel Barbery was born in Casablanca in 1969, she studied philosophy in France, spent a few years in Kyoto. She is living currently in France. Her first novel was published in 2000 and was translated into many languages.