In his new novels “Secrets of the Heart” and “The Riddle of the Name,” Nothomb talks about love, or more precisely, about the mysterious paths of unlove, about how this resonates in the destinies of children deprived of parental affection. “Secrets of the Heart” (the French title of the novel plays on Musset’s line “Strike yourself in the heart, genius lurks there”) is a cruel fairy tale about the fate of a lovely girl named Diana, who, in early childhood, faced the jealousy and envy of a cruel mother, who, with the birth the first child decided that her life was over. According to critics and readers, this is one of the best books by the writer who claims that “jealousy is the erosion of the code of love.” Nothomb’s new novel “The Riddle of the Name” is about dislike. There are names that suit both boys and girls. Claude and his wife Dominika decide to give their only and unloved daughter a very strange name, not at all thinking that she could live with this name... For the first time in Russian!