Fiction
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Willem Frederik Hermans - The House of Refuge
The House of Refuge is a novella of great literary value. Like the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, it shows the effects of war on individuals. Hermans plumbs the madness of war in a subtle yet gripping way, describing how people... >>>> read more
Frans Kellendonk - Mystical Body
In a novel both comical and tragic, Frans Kellendonk explores some very delicate themes. Catholic businessman Gijselhart vents his anti-semitic views when he learns that his daughter is pregnant by Bruno Pechman, a Jew. She has come home to have... >>>> read more
Charles den Tex - Cell
It is every citizen’s dilemma in this era of ever advancing information technology: can privacy still be protected now that more and more personal data are stored online? In Cell, the ingeniously constructed plot turns on identity theft. Business consultant... >>>> read more
Hugo Claus - The Rumours
Hugo Claus set The Rumours in the mid-1960s. René Catrijsse, a man in his twenties who fought in the Belgian Congo before deserting, returns to his home village of Alegem in West Flanders, a stifling, closed society of corrupt souls.... >>>> read more
Tommy Wieringa - Caesarion
Research for this novel took Tommy Wieringa to three continents, from an English seaside town to the jungles of Panama, from the Middle East to the United States. They are all ports of call on the Odyssey undertaken by his... >>>> read more
Harry Mulisch - Siegfried: A Black Idyll
In Siegfried, Mulisch looks back to World War II. Rudolf Herter, a feted author, wants to fathom the most inscrutable person he has ever heard of: Adolf Hitler. But how should he go about it? Providence comes to his aid.... >>>> read more
Tomas Lieske - Everything Shifts
It will come as no surprise to readers of Lieske that in his latest novel he switches perspectives and shuffles disorienting atmospheres, until it seems as if nothing can be relied upon. Thirty-four-year-old protagonist Anton Milot, grieving for his wife... >>>> read more
Hella Haasse - The Eye of the Key
Hella Haasse’s The Eye of the Key has been hailed by Dutch literary critics as one of the best books she has ever written. It is the story of her return to her native soil, the Dutch East Indies. Herma... >>>> read more
Peter Buwalda - Bonita Avenue
An honourable man destroyed by the disgrace brought upon him by his children – Peter Buwalda has given this universal and timeless theme a contemporary setting. Siem Sigerius’ life takes an upward path until 2000, the year in which an... >>>> read more
Oek de Jong - Hokwerda’s Child
In Hokwerda’s Child, the writer tells the story of a determined young woman, Lin Hokwerda, who loses herself in love. The book is narrated with a broad vision and an extraordinary eye for detail. The novel opens with an oppressive... >>>> read more
Gerbrand Bakker - The Detour
The natural world occupies a prominent place in Gerbrand Bakker’s still relatively small oeuvre. As a farmer’s son and now a horticulturalist, he has a detailed knowledge of the subject. In his work, nature is no romantic backdrop but a... >>>> read more
Willem Elsschot - Cheese
Cheese is a gentle, satirical fable of capitalism and wealth. Frans Laarmans is a humble shipping clerk. One day he is suddenly elevated to the position of chief agent for a Dutch cheese company, with responsibility for Belgium and the... >>>> read more
Thomas Rosenboom - Point Shoes
Thomas Rosenboom’s novella Point Shoes is set in contemporary Amsterdam. Its watertight structure and plot ensure that this story of the love of the apparently dull Bijman for Esther, a woman he meets at tango lessons, will continue to haunt... >>>> read more
Herman Koch - Summerhouse with Swimming Pool
Doctors are unassailable. Their patients, with all their secrets, are delivered up to them body and soul. Marc Schlosser, the central character in Herman Koch’s Summerhouse with Swimming Pool, is a family doctor to the rich and famous, and behind... >>>> read more
F. Bordewijk - Character
Character tells the story of Katadreuffe, a clerk struggling to work his way up in society. He opens a shop, only to be made bankrupt by the formidable bailiff Dreverhaven, his own father. Every time success comes within reach, his... >>>> read more
E. du Perron - Country of Origin
E. du Perron, along with his friend, the essayist and writer Menno ter Braak, possessed the good taste and sense of direction needed to brighten the literary climate of The Netherlands in the 1930s. As editors of the renowned magazine... >>>> read more
Gerard Reve - The Evenings
When the novel The Evenings first appeared, Reve was hailed as ‘the voice of a generation’. Since then the book has become a modern classic, continuing to appeal to each succeeding generation. The book revolves around Frits van Egters, twenty-three... >>>> read more
Hella Haasse - Oeroeg
For many Dutch people, this short novel was an eye-opening introduction to race relations in the colonial Dutch East Indies. In the brief scope of a novella, Haasse illuminates the funda-mental problems of the colonial system. From early childhood, the... >>>> read more
Willem Frederik Hermans - Beyond Sleep
Beyond Sleep is the oppressive story, told with consummate skill, of young geologist Alfred Issendorf. Like all scientists, he dreams of fame and immortality. Along with a young geologist called Arne and two assistants, he sets off for the North... >>>> read more
Maria Dermoût - The Ten Thousand Things
First published in 1955, The Ten Thousand Things was immediately recognized as a truly magical work. Maria Dermoût depicts the idyllic setting beautifully, and she handles the legends and darker aspects of the story, ghosts, superstition, even murder, with consummate... >>>> read more
Harry Mulisch - Archibald Strohalm
On publication of his debut novel Archibald Strohalm in 1951, Harry Mulisch was immediately recognized a great literary talent and new voice in post-war Dutch literature. This highly imaginative story with its bizarre characters set the tone for Mulisch’s extraordinary... >>>> read more
Harry Mulisch - The Stone Bridal Bed
In The Stone Bridal Bed Harry Mulisch describes what J.M. Coetzee has called ‘the peculiarly male pleasure in violation, a joy in destruction that is to be found as much among Homer’s Greeks as among the American airmen who bombed... >>>> read more
Tommy Wieringa - Joe Speedboat
With his wheelchair-bound narrator, Fransje Hermans, who has cerebral palsy and cannot speak but only grunt unintelligibly, Tommy Wieringa has written a novel whose every page sparkles with brilliant inventiveness. The story centres on Joe Speedboat, Fransje’s friend and enterprising... >>>> read more
F. Springer - Bougainville
F. Springer was a diplomat who travelled the world. Several remarkable episodes from his time spent ‘living out of a suitcase’ are reflected in the lives of his characters. Like the worldly Stendhal, he takes a light and humorous approach.... >>>> read more
Henk van Woerden - Ultramarine
Ultramarine is a scintillating portrayal of the eastern Mediterranean in the second half of the twentieth century. Like Orhan Pamuk, and perhaps even more, Van Woerden shows how unquestioning imitation of western customs leads to the degeneration of indigenous cultures.... >>>> read more
Anna Enquist - The Homecoming
In The Homecoming Anna Enquist tells the story of the marriage of James Cook, the great eighteenth-century explorer who charted a large part of the globe. Elizabeth Batts, James’ wife, is waiting for him to return from his second voyage,... >>>> read more
Henk van Woerden - A Mouthful of Glass
In 1966 Demitrios Tsafendas killed South African premier Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid. In this powerful book Henk Van Woerden reconstructs the life of Tsafendas and gives at the same time a personal and intimate account of the South... >>>> read more
Frank Martinus Arion - Double Play
It is a hot afternoon in the village of Wakota on Curaçao, an island in the Netherlands Antilles. Four men sit under a tamarind tree, playing dominoes: Booboo Fiel, taxi driver and layabout; Manchi Sanantonio, bailiff and owner of the... >>>> read more
Margriet de Moor - The Virtuoso
In Margriet de Moor’s novels and stories, amorous relationships are usually a source of conflict, as devotion imposes limits on personal freedom. In The Virtuoso (1993), set in Italy in the turbulent mid-eighteenth century, love is a lopsided business. Celebrated... >>>> read more
F.B. Hotz - Dead Means of Defense
Over a period of twenty years F.B. Hotz produced an outstanding body of work that occupies a prominent place in Dutch letters. In a crystal-clear style, Hotz evokes a world of flamboyant layabouts, door-todoor salesmen with families to support, and... >>>> read more
A.F.Th van der Heijden – Ash Destination
Reality and fiction are always closely bound up together in the work of A.F.Th. van der Heijden. Historical events – such as the coronation of Queen Beatrix in 1980, which was marked by heavy riots on the streets of Amsterdam,... >>>> read more
Gerhard Durlacher - Stripes in the Sky
This book concerns all of us, even if we belong to a generation born long after Auschwitz, where the young Gerhard Durlacher was the only member of his family to survive. Stripes in the Sky recounts many moments of anguish,... >>>> read more
Arnon Grunberg - Phantom Pain
‘If the laws of economics apply to anything, then it’s to emotions,’ is one of Robert Mehlman’s many one-liners. Mehlman, the narrator in Phantom Pain, is tormented by writer’s block, his only successful publication being a cookery book called The... >>>> read more