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Apr 28, 2026
Acclaimed writers Adam Gopnik, Amor Towles, and others gather for a conversation about the art of the modern mystery novel — and the life of pioneering mystery writer Georges Simenon.
Georges Simenon wrote fast, lived faster, and left behind one of the most quietly radical bodies of work in 20th century fiction. Restlessly travelling the world with a churning creative intensity, Simenon published more than 400 mystery novels in his lifetime. In books like The Snow Was Dirty and The Blue Room, he dispensed with whodunits in favor of moral weather systems of guilt, desire, and fear. In all of Simenon’s books, crimes matter less than the people who commit them — and the selves they discover afterward. With Picador’s reissue of nearly 100 of his novels over the next few years — both the celebrated Inspector Maigret mysteries and the darker, unnerving romans durs — Simenon’s uncanny ability to smuggle existential dread into crime fiction is coming out of the shadows and into the light.
Who was the man behind Maigret? In a celebration of his life and work, join Gopnik, Towles, and a group of distinguished writers and critics for a conversation about Simenon’s life and work: how Simenon moved the art of detective fiction forward, the creation of a new kind of existential pulp fiction, and his enduring legacy in the bloodstream of popular culture.
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