The latest addition to my website isAmélie Nothomb‘s L’impossible retour [The Impossible Return]. In this book, Amélie Nothomb returns to Japan, where she had lived earlier in her life, with a female photographer friend, who had won a photography competition with free travel for two as the prize. The friend, Pep, turns out to be both somewhat neurotic but also more adventurous than Amélie in exploring Japanese culture. They first visit Kyoto where Amélie lived for the first five years of her life and later revisited with her father. Her feelings about Japan are clearly tied with her feelings for her now deceased father. However she feels Kyoto has changed little. Their next stop is Tokyo with a side trip to Mount Fuji. Améliehad lived and worked there in her twenties but had not really done much tourism. Once again Pep is bolder. On return to Paris she analyses the trip and her relationship to travel in general. It was an enjoyable book contrasting both this trip with her previous experiences and her reactions to those of her friend