"Hunting and Gathering" (by Anna Gavalda)

Hunting and Gathering is a 2004 novel by the French writer Anna Gavalda. Its original French title is Ensemble, c'est tout, which means "Together, that's everything". The narrative follows an anorexic young woman who struggles with the neuroses, both of her own and of people around her. The book was adapted into a 2007 film with the same title, directed by Claude Berri.

Prize-winning author Anna Gavalda has galvanized the literary world with an exquisite genius for storytelling. Here, in her epic new novel of intimate lives-and filled with the "humanity and wit" (Marie Claire) that has made it a bestselling sensation in France-Gavalda explores the twists of fate that connect four people in Paris. Comprised of a starving artist, her shy, aristocratic neighbor, his obnoxious but talented roommate, and a neglected grandmother, this curious, damaged quartet may be hopeless apart, but together, they may just be able to face the world.

Anna Gavalda has already cast a spell over her French readers; now her best-selling novel about sex, food and loneliness is to be published here. She talks to Kirsty Lang

'Meet me in the brasserie terminus opposite the Gare du Nord. I shall be wearing a beret and carrying a baguette,' read my email from Anna Gavalda, who clearly believes that we British like nothing better than having our stereotypes confirmed.

The French do, too, judging by their appetite for Gavalda's writing. Her latest novel, Hunting and Gathering, is a charming optimistic fable about two quintessentially Gallic subjects - food and sex - which has been at the top of the bestseller charts in France since its publication last year. Her only serious competition is The Da Vinci Code.

Gavalda, a slim blonde in her mid-thirties, turns up for our rendezvous without baguette or beret. Dressed casually in pale trousers and crisp cotton shirt, she is refreshingly free of the airs and graces that so often accompany Parisian literary success.

She's been a publishing phenomenon in France since 1999, when her first book, a short-story collection about love, sold nearly a million copies. The book was a word-of-mouth hit that had been turned down by all the major publishers before being picked up by the tiny Editions Le Dilettante, with whom she has remained.

Gavalda has been described variously as the new Françoise Sagan or a French Dorothy Parker and, indeed, her books have both wit and a whimsical charm. Le Figaro, a newspaper not known for either quality, described her recently as 'a good fairy who, with her limpid prose, her heartfelt writing and sparkling dialogue, knows how to put the magic into ordinary lives'.

In other words, Gavalda's books are a powerful antidote to the burning suburbs and high unemployment that have led thousands of young French people to flee their country.

Hunting and Gathering is about to be made into a film featuring Audrey Tautou, who starred in Amélie, the most successful French-language movie of recent years. Like Amélie, Hunting and Gathering stops at nothing to make the reader feel good. Reading it reminded me of tucking into one of those beautifully constructed little cakes that you see in the windows of elegant French patisseries.

I tell Gavalda that the last French author I interviewed was the nihilistic Michel Houellebecq, whose satires on middle-aged male angst couldn't be a greater contrast to her stories. She rolls her eyes. 'Every time I go abroad, I'm asked about him. How many cigarettes did he smoke during your interview?'

Over oysters and salade Niçoise, I ask Gavalda if she is as optimistic as her writing suggests. 'Not at all, I'm a depressive. My first novel was about a marriage breaking up. It was based on my own divorce and it took a lot out of me. This time I wanted to write a love story, something uplifting.'

Around the time of her divorce she went to see the film Black Cat, White Cat, by the veteran Yugoslav director Emir Kusturica. It's a romantic comedy about a small-time gypsy hustler, set against the backdrop of the Bosnian war. 'I came out feeling really good and it made me realise that it's easy to make people cry. It's much more difficult to make them feel happy.'

Her hero is the young Belfast writer Robert McLiam Wilson. She cites his novel Eureka Street - a humorous tale of love and unlikely friendship in a city divided by sectarian violence - as a powerful influence.

Hunting and Gathering is about four lonely people who end up living together in a grand apartment overlooking the Eiffel Tower. Two of them, Camille, a gamine anorexic, and Franck, a rude chef from the provinces, fall in love. 'I thought there was something romantic about a man whose whole world revolves around food, falling in love with a woman who has lost her appetite.'

Gavalda explained that she wanted to write about love, but also cooking: 'I'm fascinated by that whole world of the restaurant kitchen, but I'm not a cook so I had to do some research.' When she told her publisher that the new novel was about sex and food, he rubbed his hands in glee and said, 'Great for the overseas sales.'

But there is a dark side to Gavalda's Paris. Her four protagonists are lonely, the isolated inhabitants of a city where a quarter of the population live by themselves. Their redemption comes through being thrown together.

The French title for the book is Ensemble C'est Tout -Togetherness is Everything. Gavalda is unsure why the English publisher chose Hunting and Gathering, although the blurb on the back comparing her to Melissa Bank, the American author of the bestselling The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, surely supplies a clue.

The book is dedicated to 'Mugette (1919-2003), Body unclaimed', a reference to one of the dozens of old people who died in the Paris heatwave three years ago, when much of the city's population went on holiday, leaving the elderly to fend for themselves. To Gavalda, Mugette is the unknown soldier of France's elderly population.

'There were 66 bodies unclaimed after the heatwave. Their names were printed in the papers. I wanted to reclaim Mugette and show that someone remembered her. I wondered how many years of solitude she must have endured before her death to end up so alone.' In the French paperback edition, Gavalda included Mugette's last name, hoping someone might come forward and claim her, but nobody did.

One of the four characters in Hunting and Gathering is a Mugette. At the beginning of the novel, Franck's grandmother, Paulette, is abandoned by her family in a grim, state-run old-people's home. Eventually, Camille takes pity on her and persuades Franck to let her move in with them. Gavalda says she has had letters from people saying, 'I'm going to keep my elderly relative living at home, now that I've read your book.'

Gavalda, who remains close to her own mother, an artist, now lives in the Paris suburbs with her two young children. I ask whether she would like to have more. 'I would, but, every time I read the news-papers or think what we are doing to our environment, I feel my ovaries shrinking in horror. It would be irresponsible to bring any more human beings into this world.'

She smiles: a pessimist who has written an optimistic novel.