New Dutch Fiction
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NEW DUTCH Autumn 2020 Dutch Foundation for Literature FICTION This new edition of New Dutch Fiction once again presents a selection of books recently published in the Netherlands, books that have been included for their artistic and commercial success. Who decides the contents? Do you work together with Dutch publishers and agents? We want to showcase the best fiction from the Netherlands. We keep each other informed Most titles have been published about interest in titles and recently and have done very well rights sales. When we com in terms of reviews, sales and mission a sample translation, awards or nominations. Equally we usually share the costs. important is the question: However, we always make our ‘Does it travel?’ Our specialists own decisions, and remain Barbara den Ouden, Claudia completely independent. di Palermo, Victor Schiferli, Tiziano Perez and Dick Broer try How many books by one and keep up with all the fiction author will you support? that appears and read as much as they can. As of this year, we We can support four books by have worked with an advisory one author. If the author has panel, who give us advice and changed foreign publishing input on new fiction. The final house, previous titles are not selection is made by the Dutch counted. Foundation for Literature. Are all books in your brochure At book fairs, do you eligible for a grant? talk about these books exclusively? Yes they are, with a maximum subsidy of 100% of the trans While we like to discuss our lation costs for classics and 70% catalogue, there are always for contemporary prose, based other titles: books that have on the actual fee paid by the just appeared or are about to publisher and with a maximum come out or books that just of 10,000 euros per translation missed our selection. Our advi grant. sors read as much fiction as they can. ANSWERS AUTUMN 2020 1 Are books that aren’t included Do you subsidise production The Foundation’s specialists in your brochure eligible? costs? are present at prominent book fairs, including Frankfurt and As long as it’s a good literary This is possible in the case of London. They will be happy to title, it probably is. We make our editions of poetry, illustrated give you more information. decisions based on three criteria: children’s books or graphic literary quality of the book, status novels. For regular fiction and of the publishing house and nonfiction, we support transla quality of the translator. You can tion costs only. always ask in advance if a book is eligible or not. We would like to invite a Dutch author for a Can you help us find a promotional visit translator? If you organise a good pro Lists of experienced translators gramme and offer the author are provided by email. If you accommodation, we can cover Barbara den Ouden Victor Schiferli want to work with somebody the travel costs. Because travel is [email protected] [email protected] who is not on our list, we require impossible for the moment due Fiction Classics a sample translation of 20 pages to Covid19, you can apply for Graphic novels Poetry and the translator’s CV. If the a subsidy for the promotion of translation is good, the transla recent translations: tor will be added to our list. If the www.letterenfonds.nl/en/ translation needs repair, we can travelcosts make suggestions. If the trans lation is beyond repair, you are What’s Schwob? advised to hire somebody who is on our list. Schwob.nl is a European network for forgotten or undis How do we apply for a covered books, established translation subsidy? and maintained by translators, publishers and editors, research Claudia di Palermo Tiziano Perez We need contracts with the ers, readers and critics. [email protected] [email protected] rights holders and the translator, Fiction Managing director plus the application form. You Can I subscribe to Brazil can submit digitally from our New Dutch Fiction? China website: www.letterenfonds.nl/ Japan en/translationsubsidy. Please send us your contact Meetings are held six times a details and we’ll add you to our year, the dates are announced on list. All our past issues are avail our website. able at www.letterenfonds.nl. SPECIALISTS Dick Broer [email protected] Literary thrillers 2 NEWDUTCHFICTION AUTUMN 2020 3 Publishing details Gerda Blees Wij zijn licht (2020) 224 pages 59,600 words We Are Light Sample translation available Rights Podium A brilliantly written, richly faceted Feline Streekstra [email protected] novel about the profound human need Rights sold for belonging German rights (Paul Zsolnay) Four members of a commune stop that the author did not want to provide an eating because from now on they want explanation for her characters’ unstable to live on light and air. The characters lives: ‘She wants to leave the mystery that in Gerda Blees’ novel each have their is Elisabeth intact, because according to own reasons for this extreme decision, her that’s what real life is like too – other which ends up costing the protagonist, people, especially the dead, are mysteries Elisabeth, her life. This magnificent that can’t be solved, no matter how frus story is loosely based on true events. trating that might be […]’ Gerda Blees is a compelling storyteller Each of the 25 chapters opens with the who writes with forensic precision – and words ‘We are...’ and is told by a different with great humor. We Are Light is gripping narrator: from Elisabeth’s parents and from the first page to the last. It’s a mov ‘The changing perspective allows Gerda Blees siblings, the neighbors and her sister’s ing novel, but at the same time there’s Blees to zoom in, zoom out, conceal (1985) made her debut in 2017 with lawyer to the night, the daily bread, the enough light and air. the short-story collection Aan and reveal. It’s a game, loaded with doodgaan dachten we niet (We Didn’t scent of an orange, dementia, doubt, and unexpected tension [...] You’re taken Think About Dying). Her first volume Elisabeth’s own body. Each narrator has by surprise time and again.’ of poetry, Dwaallichten (Wandering Lights), appeared the following year. a unique and distinct voice and makes NRC Handelsblad an essential contribution to the novel’s We Are Light is her first novel and complex tapestry. received unanimous rave reviews ‘Blees knows the art of taking the from the Dutch press. She lives in a For example, bit by bit we learn more reader by the hand past successive commune in Haarlem and is studying about Elisabeth’s sister Melodie, a failed stages of concern, outrage and Fine Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Acade- cellist and the leader of the commune, as mie in Amsterdam. resignation. She subtly calls into well as two other members of the group, question the judgments we pass the cheerful Muriël and the troubled Petrus. on idealistic people like the novel’s Elisabeth’s body tells us how much it protagonists, and she allows us to yearned for attention and the touch of empathize with people we initially loving hands. We find out from the daily thought we’d never be able to relate to.’ bread that Muriel has a hard time resist Tzum ing its lure. The pen tells us that mem bers of the commune used him to write ‘An excellent novel [...] The stunning letters to parents whom they were no final chapter will leave readers longer speaking to. Even the story itself gasping for air.’ appears as one of the narrators. It tells us VPRO Gids 4 NEWDUTCHFICTION AUTUMN 2020 5 Publishing details Jeroen Brouwers Cliënt E. Busken (2020) 224 pages 59,600 words Client E. Busken 45,000 copies sold Sample translation available Publisher A spectacular novel on the decline of a Atlas Contact Hayo Deinum brilliant mind [email protected] Translated titles Please see en.vertalingendatabase.nl At eighty years old, Brouwers once again ‘like pearls slipping off a string, one by manages to surprise readers with an one words are beginning to escape [him].’ extraordinary book, funny and wry at In this novel, which describes one day the same time, about the decline of a in the life of the snarling protagonist, we man with dementia who spends his are taken along on his endless, confused Jeroen Brouwers final days confined to a wheelchair in but often witty train of thought, sus (b. 1940) Jeroen Brouwers’ work the Villa Madeleine nursing home. pended between the present and the past, has strong autobiographical ele- with fragmented memories of both true ments, such as in the widely praised Client E. Busken – because patients no events and likely invented characters. Bezonken rood (Sunken Red, 1981). In his long career he has been honored longer exist in the Dutch healthcare sys There’s an encounter with a young new ‘Brouwers lets us ride the waves with many literary prizes, including tem – is furious. Furious with his mother, caregiver who fires up Busken’s imagina of his thoughts, and in so doing the F. Bordewijk Prize for De Zond- furious with the staff of Villa Madeleine, tion, one or two sanitary accidents, a few manages – and this merits special vloed (The Deluge, 1988) and the the nursing home to which he has been meddlesome fellow clients, a barbecue praise – to effortlessly captivate us. Multatuli Prize for Het verzonkene admitted against his will, furious with the at the end of the day and the constant (The Submerged, 1979).