THE LIFE AND BOOKS of Georges Simenon, whose centenary is being celebrated this year, are the stuff of legends, from his prodigious literary output, including 76 novels featuring that icon of cops, Inspector Maigret, to his numerous affairs.

As part of the Crime Scene 2003 season at the National Film Theatre in London, Simenon’s work is being celebrated with adaptations of his work for both film and television. On show are not only small-screen incarnations of Maigret in the form of Rupert Davies, Richard Harris and Michael Gambon, but also a number of non-Maigret stories adapted by the BBC in the 1960s. And there are also two rare interviews on the BBC with Simenon himself, from Monitor (1959) and Late Night Line-Up (1969).

Still second only to the Bible in overall worldwide sales of his books, Simenon was immensely admired by both Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. His non-Maigret novels — the dark novels, as he liked to call them — have aged little and still compare favourably with the murky, grey worlds of James M. Cain, Jim Thompson and Patricia Highsmith with their ambiguous world view of innocents and criminals caught in the whirlpools of fate and struggling to make sense of their existence.

Indeed, Simenon was treading this territory long before the French existentialists and it could be argued that he was a major influence on the doomladen realism of many of the now classic American pulp paperback writers. And his relationship with America is a fascinating one.

After the Second World War, Simenon was worried that his wartime activities in France might attract undue attention. He had agreed to sell film rights to his books to Continental Films, a German-financed production house (which features heavily in Bertrand Tavernier’s recent film about occupied Paris, Laissez-Passer). He had also sat on a literary award jury with well-known collaborator writers.

At the time he was already fascinated by America since his French publisher, Gaston Gallimard, had provided him with all the translations of writers such as Hammett, Horace McCoy, Donald Henderson Clarke and others, all of which made a strong impression on Simenon, who recognised them as kindred souls.

Simenon decided it would be wiser to leave France for a short time. In October 1945 he arrived in New York with his wife Tigy and their son Marc. He was cleared of all pro-German sympathies soon after. Simenon’s American journeys were to last ten years.

Their initial stay was at the palatial Drake Hotel off Central Park and 56th Street, but Simenon’s intentions were for the family to settle in Canada, where he hired a property in Sainte Marguerite du Lac Masson (Quebec), 45 minutes away by plane, so he could occasionally commute to New York City for business and pleasure. However, the best-laid plans of crime writers are soon crossed by fate. Barely a month later, in November 1945, in search of bilingual secretarial assistance, he came across a young Canadian woman, Denyse Ouimet. The two met at his favourite restaurant, Brussels, on 78th Street. It was love at first sight.

The story of Simenon and Denyse’s fiery and bittersweet affair became the thinly veiled subject of his next novel, Three Beds in Manhattan, still one of his most erotic and emotionally charged stories. Not only did Denyse get the job as his secretary but she was also openly welcomed into the family and began living with Simenon while Tigy turned a blind eye to the relationship.

The next Maigret novel also took advantage of his new surroundings and brought the obstinate, pipe-smoking Parisian cop to the Big Apple in Maigret in New York. Simenon soon tired of Quebec and the new family unit moved to St Andrews in New Brunswick. Over the following decade this became a repetitive pattern, with Simenon acquiring and selling houses on a regular basis as he tired of cities and environments. It was the beginning of an unending journey across the North American continent in search of new landscapes and fresh stories.

Consumed by wanderlust, Simenon moved on again as soon as September 1946, with present and future wife, son and nanny, and later his previous mistress, Boule, and took a slow drive down the coast which would end in Florida two months later. Here, the group splintered, with Simenon and Denyse moving into the Coral Sands bungalow at Bradenton Beach, while Tigy and Marc settled in Sarasota.

Half a year later and he is on the road again, visiting Cuba, Georgia and Tennessee before upending roots and travelling West with Denyse and Marc to Arizona where Denyse becomes pregnant. After the birth of John, Simenon found another property in Carmel and finalised his divorce from Tigy in Reno.

With his private life seemingly sorted, Simenon travels back East and acquires a large farm in Connecticut in Lakeville, and instals his previous two women with whom he still shares an amiable relationship a few miles away in Lime Rock. At long last, Simenon’s property trail across America comes to a halt and he will live on Shadow Rock Farm until his return to Europe (and a further, compulsive series of moves) in 1955, after the trauma of a neighbour’s son drowning in the Lakeside swimming pool. This is where his daughter with Denyse, Marie-Jo, was born in 1953.

By now, Simenon had travelled repeatedly across America, with regular pilgrimages to Hollywood where his books were coveted, and began one of the most productive and inventive periods in his writing life. The diverse panorama of America and its highways and alienness now illuminated the European sensibility of his writing. At one stage he even considered taking American citizenship.

He had reached the stage where he was writing almost 80 pages a day and literally churning out books whose overall quality was always of the highest order. In a way, he had transformed himself into the most American of European writers.

When I mentioned in conversation with the French cultural attaché in London that Simenon was to be the focus of the forthcoming Crime Scene festival, she was so delighted that I felt I had to point out that he was in fact Belgian, not French. To which she correctly replied that he was an essential part of French culture. But I do feel that America had a pronounced influence on his life and books too.

• Maxim Jakubowski is the literary director of the Crime Scene Film and Book Festival, July 10-13, at the National Film Theatre, SE1 (020-7928 3232)

  ArtsFirst

  ArtsFirsts card-holders can enjoy 2-for-1 entry to most Crime Scene screenings and literary events at the National Film Theatre in London between July 10 and July 13. Simply present your ArtsFirst card at the box office when purchasing your ticket, and take a friend along for free. If you haven't got an ArtsFirst card, apply online at www.timesonline.co.uk/artsfirst