because she is “the archetype of beauty today.” He said: “I wrote a work of fiction. My character is not Scarlett Johansson.” The author recently hit out against the actor on French radio, saying the legal action was “rather sad”. He said: “It freaks me out to think that, when you talk of a character in a novel, judges can get involved.” Delacourt has become one of France’s best-loved authors; his previous novel, My List of Desires, was translated into 47 languages and is now being adapted into a film. But he said he was “speechless” when he found out Johansson was suing him. “I thought she’d get in contact to ask me to go for a coffee with her. I didn’t write a novel about a celebrity,” he said. “I wrote a real love story and a homage to feminine beauty, especially interior beauty. “If an author can no longer mention the things that surround us – a brand of beer, a monument, an actor – it’s going to be complicated to produce fiction. “It’s stupefying, especially as I’m not sure she’s even read the novel, since it hasn’t been translated yet.” Emmanuelle Allibert, spokeswoman for publisher JC Lattès, said taking legal action was “crazy”. “We have never known anything like it. It is all the more surprising for the fact that the novel is not even about Scarlett Johansson. It is about a woman who is Scarlett