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Nederlandsletterenfonds

dutch foundationfor literature

Spring 2014

10 Booksfrom Holland

London Book Fair Issue

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In this intricately structured novel,Heijmans delivers a compelling exami-nation of the relative nature of our rootsand the loneliness of the asylum seeker,for whom home has become an abstractconcept. He contrasts this with therigidity of a clinical system that mas-querades as humane.

Albert Drilling, a special governmentofficer of the Kingdom of the Netherlands,is a diligent technocrat and a man with amission: to personally ensure that asylumseekers return to their homeland oncetheir legal avenues have been exhausted,ideally with a minimum of embarrassment

to the relevant government minister. Thismission takes him to an island off thenorth coast of Holland to track down anasylum seeker who has stayed behind asan illegal alien following the closure of thelocal detention centre. All he has to go onis her name. Irin Past – she bears a name dreamtup by her father – feels at one with theislanders and they have taken her to theirhearts. She has struck up friendships withthe ferry captain, the mayor and the

island’s most successful entrepreneur. Her exemplary integration into Dutch societyleaves Albert undeterred. However, profes-sional pride dictates that he must find asafe and familiar environment for asylumseekers in their country of origin.

What form might that take for Irin? Shebelieves her roots lie in Egypt, but this toois the product of her father’s imagination.

Albert heads to Cairo to find the housewhere she was born. There he wades hisway through the uprisings of the ArabSpring, detached yet unable to escapeentirely unscathed. An ironic thread isthat Irin seems to be welcomed by hersurroundings, while Albert is forced tograpple with a recalcitrant and hostilereality – from riots on the streets of Cairoto the treacherous wetlands of a Dutchisland. Irin’s origins lie in the Kosovar capitalPristina, of which her name is an anagram.For Albert, this is sufficient grounds toinsist that she be sent back there. Irinand her friends abandon their attempts at

resistance. Or could governmental rules and regulations offer an escape routeafter all?

Toine Heijmans

Pristina A beautifully composed novel about the confl ictbetween the rules and the reality of asylum policy

Publishing details

Pristina (2014)347 pp., 90,261 words

Rights

Shared StoriesElaine Michon,[email protected] Matten, [email protected]

PublisherAtlas Contact

Rights sold

France (Christian Bourgois)

Translated titles

En mer (Op zee). ChristianBourgois, 2013. Also in German(Arche, 2012), Danish (Turbine,2013) and Hungarian (Gondolat,2013).

Photo: Merlijn Doomernik

Toine Heijmans (b. 1969) is a journalist forde Volkskrant. After writing the non-fictionbook La Vie Vinex (2007), he made his markwith his debut novel Op Zee (At Sea, 2011).The book was lauded by reviewers a ndbooksellers alike, and has been translatedinto German, French, Danish and Hungarian.The French translation was honoured withthe Prix Médicis étranger.

‘Pristina is polished toperfection. A rich book.’— NRC Handelsblad

‘The great merit of Pristina is that Heijmans has casta major socio-politicalissue in the form ofa well-written novel.’ — de Volkskrant

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The Foundation’s advisors on literary fiction,quality non-fiction, poetry and children’s andyouth literature are present each year atprominent book fairs, including Frankfurt,London, Beijing and Bologna. Books fromHolland, Quality Non-Fiction from Holland andChildren’s Books from Holland recommendhighlights from each category’s selection.

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By t he winn

er of t he Pr ix Médicis ét r anger

Books from Holland Books from Holland2 3

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Boy grows up as the only child of hisadoptive parents. Chubby and dark-skinned, he is ruthlessly bullied atschool, but at home he says nothingabout what he is going through, only thathe has pains in his stomach. After a classouting to the beach, he does not return.His lifeless body is later discoveredwashed up on the sand.

‘A major new talent.’ That was how NRCHandelsblad described Wytske Versteeg onthe evidence of her debut novel. In Boy,her second book and winner of the BNGLiteratuurprijs, the young writer confirmsher status as a bold and highly individualvoice. Her protagonist, Boy’s mother, isnot immediately overcome by grief in theaftermath of her son’s death but is deter-mined to find out exactly what happened.How did Boy die? Was he murdered? Didhe take his own life? The police believehis death was suicide but his mother isnot so sure. Every little detail of the story seems tocrowd in on the mother. She mull s overevery aspect of how her son’s body wasdiscovered by someone out walking theirdog on the beach. She homes in on the‘deep-purple smock of a dress’ worn by

the policewoman who comes to break thenews and the ‘jarring tone’ of her voice.Tuning into details seems to offer her away of drowning out the naked truth ofwhat has happened. Her efforts to unravel the course ofevents lead her to an unsettling confron-tation with the class bully and expose herto a torrent of abuse from a girl from the

same class. Eventually she sets her sightson the drama teacher, who was preparingher pupils for a performance of Richard III

at the time of Boy’s death. This somehowappears to have triggered the fateful eventsat the beach, but no one is able or willingto fill in the details.

Hannah, the drama teacher, has left theteaching profession and moved to aremote village in Bulgaria. Boy’s motherfollows her there; she poses as a voluntaryworker who can help with the gardeningbut her true purpose is revenge. Yet assoon as she arrives at her destination, herresolve crumbles. Although Hannah leavesher stranded for hours, she cannot feelangry. In the end there is no violence, justthe dark and harrowing story of a womanwho sought to steer the group dynamicsof her class and instead precipitateda tragedy.

Wytske Versteeg

Boy A gripping novel about parenthood and loss,bullying and revenge

Publishing details

Boy (2013)189 pp., 62,900 words

Publisher

PrometheusSarina van der Ploeg,[email protected]

Rights

Sebes & Van GelderenLiterary AgencyWillem Bisseling,[email protected]

Rights sold

Turkey (Kahve Yayınları)

Wytske Versteeg (1983) is a politicalscientist. In the spring of 2012 she madea successful debut as a novelist withDe Wezenlozen (Weightless), which wasnominated for the Opzij Literature Prize 2013and long-listed for the AKO Literature Prize.In 2008 she published the non-fiction bookDit is geen dakloze (This Is Not a HomelessPerson) based on her experiences as avolunteer, mixing philosophical literaturewith journalistic observations and personalaccounts of homelessness. The book wasnominated for the Jan Hanlo Essay Prize.The novel Boy was awarded the BNGLiterature Prize. Versteeg has publishedarticles and stories in a variety of magazines and newspapers.

‘Two novels in, we cansafely conclude thatestrangement betweenfamily members is a themethat Versteeg favours. InBoy she once againdemonstrates a meticulouseye for the fine detail ofhuman relationships.’— Trouw

‘In fewer than 200 pages– and against the backdropof Shakespeare’s RichardIII – Versteeg raisesprofound questions whichgive Boy a timelesscharacter, while doubtsabout background andorigin, innocence andbetrayal, love and self-interest take on an originaland contemporary form inher narrative.’— Jury report for the BNGLiteratuurprijs

One of the most important Dutch writersof the last decade took on the challengeof writing the novella that would formthe centrepiece for the annual BookWeek. The result is an exquisite tragedyfuelled by an age gap and irreconcilabledifferences, which has garnered five-starcritical acclaim.

For Edward, a virologist in his mid-fortiesand the protagonist of A Beautiful YoungWoman, decline and deterioration havebecome an obsession. In Buddhism, akeen awareness of decay is seen as one ofthe principal sources of suffering. For thatreason alone he regards his relationshipwith a woman fifteen years his junior as astroke of fortune: Ruth is not only beauti-ful, intelligent and down to earth, but sheseems to have given him a new lease of life. Edward and Ruth’s roles reverse,however: ‘He did not grow younger t hanksto her, she grew older thanks to him’. Theirwedding celebrations mark the highlightof their relationship; from that point on,their woes multiply. Ruth has trouble

accepting the morally questionableaspects of Edward’s career (lab tests onanimals, corporate junkets). She wants achild (something Edward can live with-out), and when their baby son is finallyborn, he won’t stop crying.

Bruised by fatigue, Ruth starts to thinkher child is crying because he senses thathis father didn’t want him and she throws

Edward out of their home. By this stage hehas long been involved in an extra-maritalaffair, which will bring him even lesshappiness. Edward is a modern-day Job, andWieringa describes his ordeal in fast-paced, lyrical prose that taps into richseams of humour and depths of emotion.Edward largely brings his downfall uponhimself, through his insecurities and hisnegative thinking. His fate is even prefig-ured in a dream he has halfway throughthe narrative: ‘This is what he has made

of his life, a wasteland that stretches off i nevery direction, and of all the feelings heever possessed, only fear and confusionremain.’

Tommy Wieringa

A Beautiful Young Woman A man brought to ruin by his marr iage andhis fear of decline

Publishing details

Een mooie jonge vrouw (2014)94 pp., 28,000 words700,000 copies distributed

Publisher

CPNB/De Bezige Bij

Rights

De Bezige BijMarijke Nagtegaal,

[email protected] Deinum,[email protected]

Rights sold

UK/Australia (Scribe), France(Actes Sud), Germany (Hanser),Italy (Iperborea)

Sample translation available

Photo: Johan JacobsPhoto: Eline Spek

With his coming-of-age novel Joe Speedboat

(2005), translated into 15 languages, Tommy

Wieringa (b. 1967) entered the pantheon ofmodern Dutch literature. The book’s romanticvision combined with Wieringa’s gift forstorytelling and his vibrant prose style tosecure his breakthrough. His love of exoticlocations, eccentric characters and boy’s-own adventure also feature in his travelstories Ik was nooit in Isfahaan (I NeverWent to Isfahan, 2006) and in his novelsCaesarion (2009, translated into German,French and English) and Dit zijn de namen(These Are the Names, 2012, translated intofive languages). For this last novel, Wieringawas awarded the Libris Literatuurprijs.

‘A masterly portrait of afaltering marriage’— de Volkskrant

‘The work of a wizard.’ — De Morgen

About Caesarion:

‘The only writers who havesuccessfully pursued thisHoly Grail of the completenovel in recent years (thelist is perhaps notexhaustive) are RobertoBolaño in his The SavageDetectives, W.G. Sebald in

Austerlitz , J.M. Coetzee inDisgrace and Philip Rothin My Life as a Man. Fromnow on, however, to thatlist must be added thename of Tommy Wieringa.’– Le Figaro


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Mano Bouzamour’s debut novel has beena runaway success, catapulting its youngauthor into the media spotlight. As hewas appearing on talk shows, he becamethe target of a backlash among theDutch-Moroccan community. In thissparkling and controversial novel, theauthor makes it painfully clear thatassimilation is the beginning, not the

end, of your troubles.

The novel’s narrator is Sam Zafar, a boygrowing up in Amsterdam’s Diamantbuurt,a neighbourhood that is home to manydeprived Moroccan families and where

youth crime is rife. Bouzamour gives avoice to this boy who is caught betweentwo cultures. His illiterate parents speakno Dutch and are dutiful followers ofIslam, a sharp contrast to the life Samexperiences at school and on the streets.

Sam’s big brother is serving a six-year

jail term for armed robbery, yet he wasalways one of the few people to understand

his little brother, and Sam feels his absencekeenly. On the eve of his incarceration, heholds Sam to a promise, made at Pisa, the

local ice-cream parlour: don’t screw uplike your big brother did. ‘Promise me that

you’ll go on where I came unstuck.’ Fingers

sticky from the ice cream, they seal thepledge with a handshake.

Sam finds himself steering a pathbetween extremes: beatings at the Qur’an school, surveillance by police patrollinghis neighbourhood and confrontationswith the lives of luxury led by many ofhis classmates. He is no angel but he isdifferent to many of his neighbourhood

friends: he has a deep love of classicalmusic and his Mozart ringtone bothbetrays his ambition to become a pianistand earns him the label ‘gay boy’. He alsotakes an interest in history. Many mightcall Sam a model immigrant son, but hisstory powerfully lays bare the culturalminefield of the assimilation process. The book can clearly be read as a classiccoming-of-age novel, concerned to a large

extent with the quest for identity and thetransition to adulthood. What gives it a real

sense of urgency is Bouzamour’s expressiveuse of telling details that illustrate just howgreat the divide is between East and West.

And that’s not all: he has an infectious senseof humour, a flair for punchy dialogue andthe scenes – most notably a night-timescooter ride through Amsterdam – areso vivid that they leap off the page.Bouzamour is a name to watch.

Mano Bouzamour

The Promise of Pisa A vibrant coming-of-age novel about growing up inthe gap between two cultures

Publishing details

De belofte van Pisa (2013)285 pp., 66,750 words9,000 copies sold

Rights


Since the publication of The Promise ofPisa, Mano Bouzamour (b. 1991) has beenthe subject of reviews, interviews andfeature-length articles in the national press.This high media profile ha s provoked a stormof criticism from the Moroccan community.Meanwhile, the film rights have been sold.

‘Mano knows what it isto grow up as the son ofMoroccan parents in thenotorious Diamantbuurtand has a fantastic talentfor bringing that worldto life. When I met himI thought, if he can getthis down on paper, it’llbe a book that everyoneshould read. And nowhere it is, on paper.’— Joris Luyendijk

‘His language crackleswith sparkling, coarse,sometimes clinicalformulations, portraying ateenage life that illustrates

the multicultural problem in a way that is bothlight-hearted and subtle.This admirable debut,pulsing with energy,snappy dialogue and urbanslang, is sure to hit thespot with young readers.’— NRC Handelsblad (****)

‘Bouzamour is full ofbravura, with a charmthat’s hard to resist, inperson and on paper.’— Trouw

Ivan, an exile from the former Yugosla-via, performs an escapology act in barsand at festivals in the Netherlands. Atthe age of 41, this modern-day Houdinidiscovers that he has a ten-year-oldson and feels a powerful urge to build arelationship with the boy. It is a decisionthat will have far-reaching consequencesfor his freewheeling lifestyle.

The Last Escape is narrated by a closefriend of Ivan’s, a man who is also father toa ten-year-old son and who sees Ivan andhis devil-may-care attitude as somethingto aspire to. The narrator is at a crossroadsin his life: he has lost his job and is bailingout of his relationship with his girlfriend.The only passionate connection he feels iswith his son Ruben. This reinforces hisbond with Ivan, who is overwhelmed bypaternal feelings upon seeing his own sonDeedee for the first time – if only becausethe boy bears a striking resemblance tohis dead brother. The two fathers and two sons spendmuch of their time together and, when

Ivan is invited to perform his mostspectacular escapology trick on the Côted’Azur, all four of them fly down to thesouth of France. The trick involves Ivanbeing tied to a chair and attempting to freehimself while flames lick at his clothes.But by this time Ivan has more on hismind than his act, especially when adeeply traumatic event from his past

comes back to haunt him.Jan van Mersbergen’s style – sparsein dialogue, rich in indirect discourse –conjures up associations with Hemingway.It is the ideal medium in which to tell anemotional tale of diamonds in the rough;of a man torn between domesticity and thewild side of life; of the rootlessness of themodern migrant; of young boys who arewiser than their parents; and ultimately ofwhat it takes to be a good father. The LastEscape echoes the themes of Van Mersber-gen’s earlier novels, but expresses themmore powerfully and succinctly than everbefore. This, his seventh novel, may wellbe his best yet.

Jan van Mersbergen

The Last EscapeTwo fathers and two sons in search of love, respectand renewed balance

Publishing details De laatste ontsnapping (2014)218 pp., 61,000 words5,000 copies sold

Rights

CosseeLaurens M olegraaf,[email protected]

Photo: Irwan DroogPhoto: Anneke Hymmen

The Last Escape is a fitting title for a novelby Jan van Mersbergen (b. 1972), a writer

whose central theme can be summed up as‘men on the run’. Van Mersbergen’s maincharacters are gruff and graceless men offew words who like their drink and yetharbour a sensitive soul. His previous novel,Naar de overkant van de nacht (To the OtherSide of the Night, 2010) – about a man whoreassesses his life one drunken night duringCarnival – won him the BNG Literatuurprijsand has since been translated into Spanish,Catalan and Turkish. His breakthrough novelMorgen zijn we in Pamplona (TomorrowPamplona, 2007), set in the world of boxing,has been translated into English, French,German and Turkish. The film rights to Naarde overkant van de nacht and Morgen zijnwe in Pamplona have been sold to a London-based production company.

‘A novel that overshadowsvirtually everything thathas recently beenpublished in the worldof Dutch literature.’

— Tubantia

‘Phrases that combinebeauty and precisionare Van Mersbergen’shallmark.’— De Groene

Amsterdammer

‘Van Mersbergen has a giftfor scenes in which simplegestures and unspokenthoughts suddenly take

your breath away.’— NRC Handelsblad


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‘The past, what was all that about?’Welcome to Arie Storm’s seventh novel.In Listening to Houses Breathe, Storm’salter ego, August Voois, is plunged intoa deep crisis and comes face to face witha distant past with which he has yet tomake peace.

Like his creator, August Voois is a writer,

an academic and a book reviewer for anewspaper and a radio show. Yet heincreasingly finds himself questioning themeaning of virtually everything he does.In his eyes the world is falling prey tostupidity and infantilism, while the seriousappreciation of literature has become thedomain of a paltry few. And as if that werenot enough, his state of mind is beingrattled by strange sighs that seem to beemanating from the walls of his home. One day our cynical protagonist decideshe can take no more and bids farewell tohis jobs at the university and the radiostation. A raging storm hits the city and

rips a gaping hole in the fabric of hishome, through which he, his wife Aliceand his daughter Masja are able to travelback in time. They become onlookersin Voois’ past as a greengrocer’s son ina rough neighbourhood of The Hague.

As he revisits the houses of his youth –his parental home and the homes ofneighbours with whom he spent much

of his time – long-suppressed traumasrise up from the depths. While Storm’s novel contains subtlereferences to Alice in Wonderland, it isfar from a series of absurd adventures.Listening to Houses Breathe begins as acynical yet upbeat satire on the literaryworld, but goes on to develop into athoughtful reflection on the workingsof nostalgia and the pain hidden awaybehind some of our childhood memories.When the time comes for the reader toemerge from the wormhole with Voois,he cannot help but feel an abidingfondness for the man.

Arie Storm

Listening to Houses Breathe An exhi larating mi x of media satire and autobiographicalfiction in the tradition of Philip Roth

Publishing details

Luisteren hoe huizen ademen (2013)159 pp., 32,500 words

Rights


Literary critic, translator and biographer ArieStorm (b. 1963) grew up in The H ague,studied Dutch and made his literary debut atthe age of 31 with Hémans duik (HémansDive), a novel that playfully manipulates therelationship between autobiography andfiction. In the six novels that followed, Stormhas continued in the tradition of his literaryheroes Vladimir Nabokov and Philip Roth.Two of his novels – Afgunst (Envy) andGevoel (Feeling) – have been nominated forthe Netherlands’ most distinguished literaryawards.

‘A slim yet splendid novelabout an author who iswrestling with his past andabout the importance of

literature.’— de Volkskrant

‘He gives an almostmystical charge to theeveryday [in] one of themost extraordinary novelspublished in theNetherlands this year.’— De Groene

Amsterdammer

‘A book that is constantlyon the move.’— NRC Handelsblad

This kaleidoscopic narrative is shotthrough with the unease of its thirty-something protagonist, tormented bythe emptiness of his existence and proneto violent outbursts directed at his girl-friends. At the same time it is a compel-ling and darkly humorous explorationof the male condition, complete with itsown twisted take on couples therapy.

When the bar he owns goes bankrupt andhis relationship with Elsa, the love of hislife, comes to a violent end, the namelessprotagonist of Tenderness falls into de-spondency. He finds a job as a postalworker for a magazine publisher and liveslife according to a fixed pattern: everySaturday he hits the bars with two bach-elor buddies and every Sunday his mothercomes to call. His weekly grind is disrupted whenhe finds a basket of kittens near his officeone day. He decides to keep one, christens him Buscemi, and before he knows ithis newfound pet has brought him intocontact with Zerline, who quickly be-comes the new woman in his life. Initiallyall is well in love, but before long a familiar tension starts to build and cracks appearin their relationship. As with Elsa, he isunable to control his fits of rage. During

one such explosion, he throws a lamp atZerline and accidentally kills Buscemi.

Alone again, he backslides into anaimless existence. He tries to analyse hisstate of mind, considers seeking profes-sional help and loses himself in thecinematic violence of Lynch, Tarantinoand Hitchcock. Vertigo inspires him toembark on a crazy experiment with a

colleague who has fallen in love with him.He begins a relationship with her in whichthey re-enact his previous conflicts withElsa and Zerline: an uneasy mix of angermanagement and couples therapy.

Convinced that he is cured of hisviolent impulses, he tries to get backtogether with Zerline and pick up wherethey left off. She rebuffs him outright andtells him that aggression is not the root ofhis problems. The heart of the matter isnot entirely clear, not even for the reader,who by this time has been lured into thedark recesses of the narrator’s mind. Inthis gripping novel, Ouariachi leavesplenty to the imagination and immersesthe reader in an intense depiction of aborn narcissist who is both desperatelyin need of love and incapable of havinga relationship: ‘Alone with his thoughts,burdened with nothing or no one otherthan himself.’

Jamal Ouariachi

Tenderness A hard-hitting psychologica l novel that takes the readerdeep into the mind of a narcissist

Publishing details Vertedering (2013)367 pp., 112,000 words

Rights

QueridoAnnette Portegies,[email protected] Vlaar, [email protected]

Photo: Lona Aalders

Jamal Ouariachi (b. 1978) studied psychol-ogy and spent years working as an onlinetherapist. He made his literary debut in 2010with the novel De vernietiging van ProsperMorèl (The Destruction of Prosper Morèl).Since then he has written controversialstories, articles and columns for a range ofleading publications including nrc.next,HP/De Tijd, de Volkskrant, Knack Focus and Vogue. His second novel Tenderness has earned him nominations for the BNGLiteratuurprijs and the Gouden Uil. He hasfollowed it up with 25, one third of a Dutchliterary trilogy written in re sponse to FiftyShades of Grey.

‘Read till your stomachaches; this magnificent,painful journey of anunfathomable man withan unquenchable thirst.’(****)— de Volkskrant

‘This is a quintessentiallypsychological novel [...], abook that shows the readermany facets of the humansoul. […] A relatively youngtalent but a mature andimpressive novel.’— Trouw

‘An intelligent andcompellingly writtenbook which immediatelyconvinces the reader thatthis is not the work of anordinary young writer.This is an oeuvre in themaking.’— De Standaard

‘What we’re dealing withhere is full-blown insanity– an experience to savour.’— Vrij Nederland

Photo: Anneke Hymmen


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The scene is Berlin, 1 904. Former teacherWilhelm von Osten is the proud ownerand trainer of Clever Hans the wonderhorse. By stamping his hoof, Hans cansolve all manner of arithmetical puzzles,from fractions to square roots. Publicspeculation is rife. Is Von Osten a conartist? A dabbler in the occult? Is heresorting to electrical trickery? Deftly

weaving historical fact and fictionalnarrative, Genee reconstructs thereasons why Von Osten’s horse neverbecame a household name to rivalPavlov’s dog.

Von Osten’s love for his horse and his faithin science help him forget the cruelty heendured as a boy whose father beat himmercilessly. He teaches his horse arithme-tic for hours on end and their demonstra-tions draw huge crowds. But Von Ostenhas loftier ambitions. He hopes to gainofficial recognition for his pedagogicalachievement and his discovery thatanimals are capable of independentreasoning. He likens himself to Mendel,Darwin and Copernicus, pioneers whosediscoveries initially met with disbelief.

With the arrival of wayward Italianpainter Emilio Rendich, scientific recogni-tion seems closer than ever. Rendich hasfriends in high places, including GeneralZobel, who publishes an article about the

wonder horse in the Military Weekly. The

early 20th century equivalent of a mediahype ensues and a committee of thirteenexperts is formed to get to the bottom ofHans’s remarkable way with numbers. Von Osten is convinced that his ambi-tions are about to be realized and is alreadylooking forward to the day when ‘Ostent-

ism’ will become a field of scientific study.By this stage he has grown extremely fond

of Rendich but with recognition withinreach it is Rendich who shatters hisdreams. With his painterly eye for detail,the artist has noticed that Hans is infact responding to the body language ofhis interrogator. The wonder horse isunmasked as a scientific fraud. WhenRendich subsequently perishes in a duelover an affair with a married woman,there is nothing left for Von Osten butto continue teaching arithmetic to hisequine companion.

Genee has written an exciting andimmensely readable tale of ambition andsecond chances at the turn of the 20thcentury. She stylishly blends fact andfiction in a thematically rich book thatcentres on the pursuit of truth. Along theway, she paints a glorious portrait of aperiod in which the scientific world founditself on a fault line. The fact that it isa painter who first solves the mysteryof the wonder horse can be regarded asa triumph for the eye of the artist.

Pauline Genee

Duel with Horse An elegant historical novel with a sta rring role for anarithmetical wonder horse

Publishing details

Duel met paard (2014)254 pp., 53,000 words

Rights

QueridoAnnette Portegies,[email protected] Vlaar, [email protected]

Photo: Denise Winters

After studying French and Russian, PaulineGenee (b. 1968) went on to hold a numberof positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affa irs.Since 2011 she has combined her literarycareer with freelance work. She first encoun-tered the story of Clever Hans the wonderhorse when she took an introductory coursein psychology at university and becamefascinated by a photograph of old Wilhel mvon Osten with his horse and a blackboardfull of sums. She describes Duel with Horse as an ode to wilfulness.

‘The pleasure the writermust have taken inrendering the lines andcolours of Berlin 1904radiates from every page[…] she weaves anintriguing plot.’— NRC Handelsblad

‘A wonderfully detailedportrait of a bygone age,drawn with flair and irony.[...] The colourfulcharacters and Genee’sassured and sparklingnarrative style lend uniquecolour to an unknown

world.’— Trouw

‘The chapters are short andsimply fly by. Soon onlyone question remains:how will it end? Will Geneebow to historical fact?Will Von Osten’s dreambe shattered? Anyone whostarts reading this storywill find out before long:that’s how unputdownablethis book is.’— Nederlands Dagblad

Tip Marugg was the hermit of Curaçao,an island in the Netherlands Antilles,and the author of a small body of excep-tionally fine literary work. His novelsshow the touch of a master stylist whotransforms his themes – death, night, thegrim fate of the alcoholic, and loneliness– into unparalleled literature.

In Weekend Pilgrimage (1957) the first-person narrator veers in his car on to theroad’s shoulder while drunk and reflectsback on his life in one long interiormonologue. The protagonist of In destraten van Tepalka (In the Streets ofTepalka, 1967) relives his experiencesin fantasies and nightmares as he lies onhis deathbed in a hospital.

In Marugg’s most important novel,The Roar of Morning (1988), a man sitson his doorstep, armed with a bottle ofwhisky, waiting for daybreak. He observesnature, thinking about Kierkegaard, hischildhood in Venezuela, and his life onCuraçao, where he feels out of place asa white Antillean, and he has feverishdreams about women. The novel contains

one of the most beautiful scenes in worldliterature, in which the narrator watchesscores of birds in flight crashing into asteep rock face and dying, a daily event.The passage is unforgettable:

‘With fading recognition I look at thefamiliar things around me: the wardrobefull of clothes, most of which I have never

worn; the big curtain over the window,lined with thick material to keep out thelight when I sleep all morning; the small,colourful vase that I have been looking atfor twenty years and which every Wednes-day I am afraid the cleaning woman willsmash, as she has done with most of theglassware; the orange rug next to my bed,on which I sometimes let one of the dogsspend the night when it is ill or sad. Thefeeling of oneness with these things hasvanished – it is as if they already belongto others. I light a cigarette. The smokeI exhale is sucked up to the ceiling by theair conditioning and then snakes lazilyback down the wall. Outside I can hear the

crowing of the cocks. The roar of morningis here once more and is not to be trusted.’

Tip Marugg

The Roar of MorningThe most Latin American of Dutch writers

Publishing details

De morgen loeit weer aan (1988)138 pp., 36,991 words

Rights

De Bezige BijMarijke Nagtegaal,[email protected] Deinum,[email protected]

Translated titles

Auch Vögel sterben im Morgenblau (De morgen loeit weer aan).Germany: Twenne, 1991.Weekend Pilgrimage(Weekeindpelgrimage).UK: Hutchison, 1960.

Full English translation available

Photo: Enid Hollander

Silvio Alberto Marugg, known as Tip(b. 1923, Willemstad, Curaçao), wrote three

novels at long intervals, also publishinga volume of poetry, Afschuw van licht;gedichten 1946-1951 (Horror of Light:Poems, 1946-1951; 1976). He rec eived theCola Debrot Prize for The Roar of Morning and was nominated for the AKO LiteraturePrize. Tip Marugg was called ‘the island’sthinnest shadow’ because of his lanky frame.He led a reclusive existence, avoiding thepublic eye, although one colourful articledescribed his life in a remote house sur-rounded by dogs, with a pistol on his bedsidetable. He died, solitary and blind, in 200 6.His collected work was published threeyears later under the title De hemel is vankorte duur (Heaven Doesn’t Last).

‘Every detail, everydigression is purposeful,the subject mattersignificant, the styleperfect. I would like toquote as much of thisnovel as I possibly can, toread it over and over againright away. Such a noveldeserves a magnificentreception.’

— Vrij Nederland

‘The final chapter bringsan uncommon climax; thehallucinatory, apocalypticimages in which Maruggdescribes the swellingroar of the morning arebreathtaking – I woulddescribe this, withouthesitation, as one of themost gripping chaptersin all Dutch literature.’— De Groene

Amsterdammer

Modern Classic


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Violence inflicted on children: even the prospect leaves us with a sickeningfeeling of helplessness. We would do any-thing to stop it and, as readers, we turnthe pages anxiously in the hope that theunthinkable can be averted. EstherVerhoef makes clever use of this impulsein her intense thriller, which grips thereader from beginning to end.

Verhoef seamlessly interweaves the narra-tive strands of her tale of intrigue, placingthe reader in close proximity to both crime

and crime fighter. She opens with policeinspector Miriam de Moor, who has justdiscovered that her brother’s widow has

taken up residence in a luxury penthouse.Miriam’s brother died six months previ-

ously after a fall down the stairs. Shesuspects that his death may not have beenan accident and that her former sister-in-

law may somehow have been involved. That same morning, Hennequin Smithstarts work as a maternity nurse at thehome of brand new parents Didi Stevensand Oscar Vos. Didi is confined to a wheel-chair due to pelvic problems related to herpregnancy and the difficult birth has lefther barely able to take care of her newbornchild. She is almost completely dependenton Hennequin’s help.

Not only is the nurse an impostor – herqualifications are fabricated, her workexperience a pack of lies – but she is alsoa sadist with her mind set on a singlepurpose: to inflict endless suffering onboth mother and child. She takes subtleadvantage of hard-working Oscar’sreluctance to accept his role as a fatherand of Didi’s distress in the face of her

physical incapacity.Miriam conducts her investigation onher own time, knowing that she facessummary dismissal if her bosses ever findout what she’s up to. Despite the risks,she vigorously pursues her inquiries andlittle by little begins to uncover the pastthat Hennequin has gone to such painsto conceal. She discovers the maternitynurse’s true identity and brings h er quarry

into sharper focus by questioning former teachers, guardians and institutionaldirectors. Eventually Miriam manages tocontact Hennequin’s father, who refusespoint-blank to cooperate with the one-woman investigation. In this claustrophobic thriller, EstherVerhoef demonstrates her completemastery of the genre, steering her plotexpertly towards its unexpected climaxwithout ever giving away more than isstrictly necessary.

Esther Verhoef

Close to the Cradle A deeply disturbed, murderous nurse threaten sthe fragile happiness of young parents

Publishing details

De kraamhulp (2014)329 pp., 81,476 words

Rights

AnthosElaine Michon,[email protected] Matten, [email protected]

Translated TitlesTegenlicht Germany: btbRendez-Vous Germany: btb, UK:Quercus, Russia: Mir KnigiClose-up Germany: btb, UK:Quercus, Danmark: JP Politiken,France: Denoël, Russia: Mir Knigi,Spain: Circulo de lectoresDéjà vu Germany : btbAlles te verliezen Germany: btb

For many years, Esther Verhoef (b. 1968)has been one of the most widely read thrillerwriters in the Dutch language. Her thrillershave sold over 1.5 million copies and havebeen translated into Spanish, French,German, English and Russian. Her workhas brought her widespread recognitionin the form of the NS Publieksprijs. She isthe winner of several leading crime fictionawards.

‘The stories of the threefemale protagonists areingeniously woventogether. Verhoef

effectively packages hertightly plotted narrativein concise sentences andcompact chapters, liberallysprinkled with grippingcliffhangers.’— NRC Handelsblad

‘A true pageturner witha masterful plot twist .’— de Volkskrant

‘Full of nail-bitingsuspense.’ (*****)— Algemeen Dagblad

James Joyce’s Ulysses as the basis fora comic book: it takes a dandy like Robertvan Raffe to come up with somethingquite this bold. Modesty is for the medio-cre! In Unfiltered, a vagabond comics artistdrifts through the streets of a universitytown in search of insight and distraction.He knocks back the booze, he chews thefat, he suffers. Along the way he weaves

a wondrous visual narrative.

The young artist stands beneath the domeof Rome’s great Classical temple, the Pan-theon, as God stares down at him throughthe oculus. This is the opening gambit ofUnfiltered, Robert van Raffe’s debut graphicnovel, in which he himself features asa character. From the cosmic grandeurof this first scene he constructs a layerednarrative, which on the surface appearsto tell a tale of student life, with its familiaringredients of wine, women and tedium.Raffe is a Chianti-swilling poseur, whomodels himself on celebrated dandies suchas Oscar Wilde and James Whistler, andsneers at the banality of everyday reality.

But beneath this surface, there are deeper,more serious forces at work. The chaptertitles in this novel refer directly to Joyce’s

Ulysses, which in turn is modelled onHomer’s Odyssey. This is High Culturein comic-book form. Raffe intercuts hisportrait of student life with imaginarydialogues in which masters such as Bacon, Warhol and Camus act as his soundingboard. It is here that the title of the bookbegins to resonate: Raffe’s dandyism isnot a pose at all but an unfiltered attempt

to connect to the fullest with the historyof art and literature. The journey continues and we enter yetanother layer: that of Raffe’s own psyche.He is a young student who spends his daysand nights in bedsit land, drinking, piningfor his lost love Penelope and thinkinghimself into an early grave: ‘In the dark-ness, I was drowning in conceit.’ Whatbegins as a flirtation with life as a dandymorphs into an intense identity crisisthat takes him to the brink of completemadness.

The true brilliance of Unfiltered is thefreewheeling, experimental visual style inwhich Raffe expresses all of these eventsand layers. When the mood strikes, hisdrawings spiral out of control, coloursflow over lines and frames dissolve ina maelstrom of psychological turmoil.

A book to make your head spin.

Robert van Raffe

Unfiltered A brilliant gr aphic novel about a young artist’s identity crisis

Publishing details

Zonder filter (2014)210 pp., 11,400 words

Rights

De Bezige BijMarijke Nagtegaal,[email protected] Deinum,[email protected]

‘A masterpiece. Worldclass. Van Raffe hasemployed entirelydifferent styles to illustratethe various chapters –sketchy, expressive,sensitive, explosive – yetnever sacrifices clarity orlegibility. He hassubstantially expanded thecomic-book idiom.’— Joost Swarte

Photo: Gert Jan PosPhoto: Liselore Chevalier

Robert van Raffe (b. 1982) studied Arts,Media & Design at the Willem de KooningAcademy in Rotterdam and is currentlystudying philosophy at Erasmus UniversityRotterdam. He debuted in 2005 in themagazine Zone 5300 with A conversation

piece, a dialogue in painted scenes between Oscar Wilde and James Abott McNeillWhistler. Robert also goes by the na meof Dandy Raffe and has published workswith titles such as Dandy tegen wil & dank (A Dandy Willy-Nilly) and Dandy opherhaling (Dandy Repeats Himself).

LiteraryThriller

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Recent Translations

Toine HeijmansAt Sea A tengeren Translated intoHungarian by Veronika Máthéfor Gondolat, 2013. Also in:Danish (Turbine), French(Christian Bourgois), German(Arche) and Turkish (Hit Kitap).

Otto de KatNews from Berlin Translated into English by InaRilke for MacLehose Press,2014. Also in: German(Schöffling & Co.).

Margriet de MoorThe Painter and the Girl Maleren og pigen Translatedinto Danish by Gudrun Gilhuis-Glenthøj and Lise Bøgh-Sørensen for Turbine, 2013.Also in: Czech (Pistorius andOlsanska), Croatian (Fraktura),French (Maren Sell), German(Hanser), Italian (Neri Pozza),Slovenian (Studentska Zalozba)Turks (Dogan Kitap) andUkrainian (Folio).

Jan Jacob SlauerhoffFoam and Ashes

Pena a popol Translated intoSlovak by Adam Bzoch forEurópa, 2013. Also in: French(Circé), German (Vertaal &Verlaat), Italian (Iperborea) andSpanish (Textofilia).

Esther GerritsenThirst Porsti Translated into Icelandicby Ragna Sigurdardottir for Málog menning, 2013. Also in:Czech (Mál og menning),English (World Editions) andGerman (Berlin Verlag).

Anne-Gine GoemansGliding Flight Svifflug Translated intoIcelandic by RagnaSigurdardottir for Forlagid,2013. Also in: Danish (Turbine),English (World Editions),German (Insel) and Italian(Iperborea).

Arnon GrunbergThe Man without Illness Hastalıksız Adam Translatedinto Turkish by Gül Özlen forAlef Yayinevi, 2013. Also in:French (Héloïse d’Ormesson),German (Kiepenheuer &Witsch), Hebrew (HakibbutzHameuchad), Hungarian(Gondolat) and Italian(Feltrinelli).

A.F.Th. van der HeijdenTonio [Tonio] Translated into Chineseby Can Zhai for Flower CityPublishing House, 2013. Alsoin: English (Scribe), German(Suhrkamp) and Hungarian(Gondolat).

Eva Maria StaalTry the Morgue Die Waffenhändlerin Translatedinto German by Ilja Braun forArche, 2013. Also in: English(W.W. Norton & Comp.) andFrench (éditions du Masque,JC Lattès).

Barbara Stok Vincent Translated into English by LauraWatkinson for SelfMadeHero,2014. Also in: Turkish (YapiKredi), Italian (BAO Publishing),French (Emmanuel Proust),Brazilian (L&PM Editores),Greek (Aiora Press), Korea(Open Book) and Spain(Salamandra Graphic).

Arjan VisserHotel Linda Der blaue Vogel kehrt zurück Translated into German byBettina Bach for DTV, 2014.

Pieter WebelingLaughter and Death Das Lachen und der Tod Translated into German byChristiane Burkhardt for KarlBlessing, 2013. Also in: Danish(Turbine), French (Denoël),Norwegian (Bazar) and Turkish(Neben Kitap).

This is a selection of recently publishedtranslations from the Dutch. For more informationplease go to our online database of translationswww.vertalingendatabase.nl.

Recent Translations

Abdelkader BenaliMy Mother’s Voice Glas moje majke Translated intoBosnian by Goran Saric forBuybook, 2013.

BernlefOut of Mind [Chezjonot sjaw] Translated intoHebrew by Ran HaCohen forAm Oved, 2013. Also in: Czech(Za

tratí),

Chinese (People’sLiterature Publishing House), Danish (Hekla), English (Faberand Faber), German (Nagel &Kimche) and many otherlanguages.

Peter BuwaldaBonita Avenue Translated into English byJonathan Reeder for PushkinPress, 2014. Also in: Czech(Odeon), French (Actes Sud),German (Rowohlt), Greek(Alexandria), Hungarian(Scolar), Icelandic (Forlagid),Italian (Mondadori) and Spanish(Salamandra).

Anna EnquistThe Sedators Les endormeurs Translated intoFrench by Arlette Ounanian forActes Sud, 2014.Also in:German (Luchterhand) andSwedish (Natur och Kultur).


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N

ederlands

letterenfondsdutch foundationfor literature

Postbus /PO Box 16588

1001 RB Amsterdamt +31 (0)20 520 73 00f +31 (0)20 520 73 [email protected]

visiting addressNieuwe Prinsengracht 891018 VR Amsterdam

Books from Holland

is distributed to internationaleditors and publishers. Pleasecontact us if you would like to beincluded on our mailing list.

Editors

Dick Broer, Barbara den Ouden,Victor Schiferli, Pieter Steinz

Contributions

Dick Broer, Marlies Hoff,Barbara den Ouden, JoostPollmann, Victor Schiferli,Pieter Steinz

Translation

David Doherty

Cover Image

Victor Schiferli

www.flickr.com/victorschiferli

Printing

Platform P

Design

Kummer & Herrman, Utrecht

Toine Heijmans

Pristina

Wytske Versteeg

Boy

Tommy Wieringa

A Beautiful Young Woman

Mano Bouzamour

The Promise of Pisa

Jan van Mersbergen

The Last Escape

Arie Storm

Listening to Houses Breathe

Jamal Ouariachi

Tenderness

Pauline Genee

Duel with Horse

Tip Marugg

The Roar of Morning

Esther Verhoef

Close to the Cradle

Robert van Raffe

Unfiltered

Books from Holland

10 books spring 2014

Documents