t sixteen Simenon was forced to abandon his studies. He worked as a baker and a bookseller and as a writer at a local newspaper. At seventeen he published his first novel. He joined a group of painters, writers, and dilettantes who called themselves La Caque (The Cask) and spent time drinking, trying drugs, and discussing philosophy and art.

In 1922 Simenon went to Paris. In 1923 he married Régine Renchon, a young artist; the marriage ended in divorce. Between 1923 and 1933 Simenon produced more than 200 books of pulp fiction under several pseudonyms. In THE STRANGE CASE OF PETER THE LETT (1930), he introduced to the public Inspector Maigret, who is apparently modelled on the author's great-grandfather. He was a friend of Josephine Baker.

In 1939 Simenon was appointed commissioner for Belgian refugees at La Rochelle. When the German army invaded France, Simenon settled in Fontenay. During the years of occupation he continued writing and enjoyed success in the film business - under Nazi bureaucracy nine films based on his text were produced. After the war Simenon found himself in the lists of collaborators. In 1945 he moved to Canada and then to Arizona. He spent the late 1940s and early 1950s in the United States; married a young French-Canadian woman, Denyse Ouimet, in 1949 and moved with his new family to Connecticut for five years, where he wrote novels with an American.

Simenon's semi-autobiographic, naturalistic PEDIGREE (1948) was written after a doctor misread an x-ray and told him that he had less than two years to live. The book was meant for his young son so that he would be able to know about his father when he grew up. However, Simenon still had 41 years ahead.

In 1955 Simenon returned to Europe and settled eventually in Lausanne, Switzerland. His marriage failed and Teresa Sburelin, a new servant, became his devoted companion. Simenon's daughter Marie-Jo had psychiatric problems and in 1978 she committed suicide.

Simenon died in Lausanne in1989. He left instructions that his body be cremated without any ceremony and that his ashes, mingled with his beloved daughter's, be scattered in the back garden of his last house in Lausanne.