Nathalie Sarraute (1900 99) was a French novelist, essayist, dramatist, and critic. Her works have been translated into more than thirty languages.

The setting of Nathalie Sarraute's Do You Hear Them? is a dinner conversation between a father and his old friend about a recently acquired pre-Columbian statue. As they discuss the merits of the piece and art in general, the father hears his children upstairs giggling. This childish mirth is barbaric and devastating to the father, for in their laughter he hears them mocking his "old-fashioned" viewpoint and the energy he wastes by collecting lifeless objects. In his mind, they have no respect for what has been of greatest importance in his life.