Quality Non-Fiction from Holland

ederlands N letterenfonds dutch foundation for literature Spring 2019 2 Quality Non-Fiction From Holland Dutch Foundation for Literature

The Dutch Foundation for Literature has the Writers-in-Residence Dutch Foundation task of supporting writers and translators, The Foundation coordinates writer-in-residence for Literature and of promoting Dutch literature abroad. programmes together with foreign universities Nieuwe Prinsengracht 89 It is an independent organization, supported and institutions. International authors are invited NL – 1018 VR Amsterdam t +31 20 520 73 00 by the Ministry of Education, Culture and to spend time working in Amsterdam. They may [email protected] Science. stay one or two months at the writers’ lodgings www.letterenfonds.nl above the Athenaeum Bookshop on the Spui. The Foundation’s advisors on literary fiction, Non-Fiction quality non-fiction, poetry and children’s and International Visitors Programme youth literature are present each year at The visitors programme and the annual prominent book fairs, including Frankfurt, Amsterdam Fellowships offer publishers and London, Beijing and Bologna. Books from editors the opportunity to acquaint themselves Holland, Quality Non-Fiction from Holland and with the publishing business and the literary Children’s Books from Holland recommend infrastructure of the . highlights from each category’s selection. Translators’ House Mireille Berman Translation Grants The Translators’ House offers translators the [email protected] Foreign publishers wishing to publish a transla- opportunity to live and work in Amsterdam for Fiction tion of Dutch or Frisian literature may apply for a period of time. It is involved with numerous Barbara den Ouden a subsidy towards the translation costs. Having activities assisting and advancing translators’ Eastern and Middle Europe, acquired the rights, the publisher’s application skills. Each year the Literary Translation Days are Mediterranean countries, Russia must be accompanied by a copy of the contract held for those translating into and from Dutch. [email protected] with the rights owner and a copy of the contract Victor Schiferli with the translator. Application forms are Schwob: Discovering International Classic Scandinavia, Germany, available from the Foundation’s website. Works of Fiction English-language countries Subsidies are paid after receipt of complimen- Schwob draws attention to and supports as-yet and poetry tary copies, with printed acknowledgement of undiscovered, untranslated classics of world [email protected] the Foundation’s support. A sample translation literature. Each month the editors select new Tiziano Perez may be required and evaluated by our external titles on www.schwob.nl. Brazil, China advisors. Applications for translations that have [email protected] already been published cannot be taken into consideration. Publishers looking for a qualified Alexandra Koch translator can request a list of endorsed Schwob [email protected] translators for their language area. Children’s Books Illustrated Books Agnes Vogt In the case of illustrated children’s books and/or [email protected] graphic novels, foreign publishers can apply for See also assistance to cover a portion of the production en.letterenfonds.nl costs.

Promotional Travel The Foundation is able to support a publisher wishing to invite an author for interviews or public appearances. Literary festivals are likewise eligible for support. Additionally, the Foundation organises international literary events in co-operation with local publishers, festivals and book fairs. 3 Quality Non-Fiction From Holland Sjeng Scheijen The Avant-Gardists The Russian Revolution in Art, 1917 – 1935

The clash between the Soviet state and the Avant-garde artists

The first book to describe in full the Tatlin presented his pioneering installation, Sjeng Scheijen (b. 1972) is a history of the complex relationship the Monument to the IIIrd International; Slavist and a specialist on Russian art. He was cultural attaché at the between a group of leading avant-garde Malevich his series of White on White Royal Netherlands Embassy in artists and the Soviet state. Related from paintings, works of daring originality. Moscow (2007 – 2009), and artistic the personal perspective of the artists, it is But less than a year later, opposition director of the year Russia - part group biography, part cultural history. to the avant-gardists rose. Once the Netherlands in 2012. He is the The result is a quintessentially twentieth- Bolsheviks grasped the groundbreaking author of the widely-acclaimed biography Diaghilev, A Life (trans- century tale about the rise and fall of a eccentricity of their ideas, they branded lated into English by Jane Hedley- small number of extraordinary talented the artists charlatans who ‘infuse[d] Prole and Steve Leinbach) which people trying to navigate the political decayed poison into the healthy nature was published in six languages and turmoil of a new state. of the proletariat’. The avant-gardists’ hailed almost unanimously as the aim of bringing ‘Art into Life’ was not in definitive life of Diaghilev. It sold more than 45,000 copies. In April 1918, just five months after the line with the Bolshevik interpretation of Russian Revolution, Kazimir Malevich, a revolutionary culture. The new rulers, Publishing details Marc Chagall, Wassily Kandinsky and instead, wanted to use art as a tool for De Avant-gardisten. De Russische Vladimir Tatlin became powerful officials entertainment and propaganda of the Revolutie in de kunst 1917 – 1935 within the new ‘People’s Commissariat masses. Before long, the avant-gardists (March 2019) 500 pp. of Enlightenment’. The old regime had were ejected from their powerful positions. Publisher: Prometheus rejected these notorious figures, who in the Chagall and Kandinsky emigrated, English sample translation available years before the revolution, had established Malevich was imprisoned. Those who themselves as the most innovative artists stayed desperately tried to maintain their Rights in Europe. Now they were assigned to former standing. Some adapted to the Nurnberg Agency Marei Pittner transform entire inner cities with their demands of the new system, some tried to [email protected] murals, posters, installations and perfor- preserve a small haven of artistic freedom, mances. Setting up modern art museums but ultimately all were marginalized. Rights sold across the country, they dispatched their Sjeng Scheijen calls on an unprecedent- Russia (Azbooka-Atticus) radical, often abstract artworks to the ed number of often unpublished letters, Photo: Alexander Sedelnikov remotest regions. They rigorously reformed diaries, and remembrances (often from art academies, developing new pedagogical inaccessible Russian archives or libraries) systems that would influence the Bauhaus to produce a vibrant, touching portrayal of and other major new art institutions. these phenomenal artists.

About Diaghilev: A Life

‘Scheijen masterfully recounts the phenomenal way in which Diaghilev contrived, under virtually impossible circumstances, to nurture a sequence of works [...] he triumphs in making clear the degree to which, despite the cosmopolitanism of so much of the work, Russia was at the core of Diaghilev.’ – The Guardian

‘The parade of great dancers, composers, and artists through Diaghilev’s life give this book the sweep of a Russian novel with a fascinating, brilliant, and complex protagonist who, according to the author, lived a very public life, but kept his most intimate feelings hidden.’ – Publishers Weekly 4 Quality Non-Fiction From Holland Karwan Fatah-Black Paths through Slavery The History of Slavery and Emancipation in Suriname

A unique perspective on the history of slavery

In Paths through Slavery, Karwan Fatah- slaves, this freed community has largely Karwan Fatah-Black (b. 1981) Black definitively reorients our under- been cast by Surinamese historians as studied history at the and received his standing of slavery and emancipation in collaborators for achieving freedom doctorate from the University of Suriname by drawing our attention to the within a racist system. Leiden in 2013. He specialised edges of the bustling port city of Para- Fatah-Black seeks to set the record in the early-modern history of maribo during the 18th and 19th centuries. straight: those who did find their way to Suriname and the slave trade. freedom and to the city were able to amass In 2016 the KNAW granted him the prestigious Young Scientists It was there that a small but growing property and together buy the freedom Award for Historical Science for community of freed slaves, living in a of family members and friends. Though his research on Dutch trans-atlantic semi-clandestine world, would ultimately rare, ‘manumission’ (the freeing of slaves) trade, in particular the slave trade. lay the foundations for what became formed an essential aspect of slavery modern Suriname. Until now, historians around the world by affording a sense Publishing details Eigendomsstrijd. De geschiedenis have often focused on the lives of slaves of humanity to slaveholders and hope van slavernij en emancipatie in and their owners on the plantations, as for those still enslaved. It would play Suriname (2018) well as their ongoing conflicts with the a key role in Suriname. On the eve of 223 pp. Marrons, the ex-slaves who had fled into slavery’s abolition in Suriname in 1863, Publisher: Ambo Anthos the jungle. Slavery’s contours in the the free non-white community had English sample translation available colonial city have largely been overlooked. grown to almost half the number of Rights Drawing on archived personal documents, those still enslaved. Ambo Anthos Fatah-Black colourfully unveils a world What were the obstacles and challenges Orli Naamani where owners, slaves, ex-slaves and faced by a community living on the peri- [email protected] foreign sailors from across the globe, pheries of accepted society? How did the Photo: Juliën van Eck regularly intermingled and traded what issues faced by these freed slaves anticipate they could – where those who owned life in Suriname after slavery’s abolition in ­property and those who were property 1863? How did they pave the way for that were difficult to distinguish. emancipation? Initially composed mostly of women Paths through Slavery is an indispensable who had borne their owner’s children, contribution to the discourse surrounding as well as ex-soldiers drafted to fight the international slave trade history as well the Marrons and recapture runaway as our understanding of modern Suriname.

‘Paths through Slavery presents a fine addition to the historiography of slavery.’ - de Volkskrant

‘A wonderful book that shines a new light on the history of slavery and its legacy.’ - Nieuwwij.nl 5 Quality Non-Fiction From Holland Thomas Rueb Laura H. The Caliphate Girl from Zoetermeer

All the way to the Islamic State caliphate – and back

In the summer of 2016, near to IS’s self- mother travel to the caliphate. This story Thomas Rueb (b. 1986) works as proclaimed caliphate in Iraq, a young of a vulnerable girl who fell in love with a reporter for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. In 2017, he won Dutch woman was found running through a handsome Jihadi and was radicalized, the Tegel Readers’ Award, the most the desert, two small children in her arms. sheds light on why anyone might decide prestigious prize in Dutch journalism. Her name was Laura, she was twenty years to support the greatest threat to world old and had escaped after a year’s captivity. peace in the past decade. When talking to Publishing details She was crying. She wanted to go home. Rueb, Laura proved a fearless, open story- Laura H. Het kalifaatmeisje uit Zoetermeer (2018) teller with an eye for detail, willing to share 508 pp., 146,000 words In a desperate attempt to save her, her her experiences with an outsider. Rueb’s Publisher: Das Mag father had set up a rescue mission with conversations with her were largely record- 10,000 copies sold the help of a shady network of mercenaries. ed in her childhood bedroom in Zoeter- English sample translation available But when Laura arrived back at Schiphol meer, as she lay on the bed, sometimes Rights Airport in the Netherlands, she was holding one leg in the air to recharge the Cossee arrested. The Dutch Public Prosecution electronic tag around her ankle. Rueb also Stella Rieck Service believed IS had sent her to commit interviewed her family, friends, the police [email protected] an act of terror. And so Laura from Zoeter- officers involved, and had access to Whats- meer became ‘Laura H.’ – the way the Dutch App and Facebook conversations, diary Photo: Willemieke Kars press label criminals, by first name and the entries, e-mails and other messages, police initial of their last name – held at the files and psychological examinations. terrorist detention facility in Vught. She Laura H. isn’t the first book on the IS, but was the first Dutch woman to return from never before has such a disconcerting and the caliphate and found herself in the eye detailed report on the hopelessness of life of a media storm. inside the Caliphate been published. First Journalist Thomas Rueb was compelled and foremost, it is the personal story of the to investigate what had made a young dramatic unravelling of a teenager’s life.

‘An eye-opening, surprising and frightening book that reads as a thriller.’ – Panorama

‘In many ways a unique book, a story that is so bizarre that it is often hard to believe, and the best that has been written on this subject. Extraordinarily well written.’ – De Groene Amsterdammer

‘Rueb combines a delicate sense of observation with a good pen and an idiosyncratic narration style.’ – Trouw 6 Quality Non-Fiction From Holland Lynn Berger Second Thoughts Reflections on Having and Being a Second Child

‘Second place, consolation prize, pipped-at-the-post.’

Remember your first time? Chances are oldest and younger siblings, changes in Lynn Berger (b. 1984) received you’ve forgotten all about your second. the family (the difference between being her PhD from Columbia University in 2016; her dissertation examined When it comes to second times, we’re three or four), the advantages and disad- photography as a new technology often left with very little to say, as Lynn vantages of comparing siblings, the effects and a new profession in the Berger realised when she became pregnant of birth order on your personality, stories nineteenth-century United States. with her second child. There is a surfeit of of jealousy and rivalry; the division of time Her essays and reportages on art, books on early parenthood and the arrival and care between parents and the role of literature, technology and photogra- phy have appeared in first-rate of your first child, but books on a second gender in this. Philosophical aspects are publications in the Netherlands. For child are hard to find. A curious omission, also addressed: how is time spent with De Correspondent she frequently especially since two-child families are children experienced? And attention is writes about metaphor, cliché, still the norm in most Western countries. paid to demography: the arrival of a ‘cultural keywords’, and the ways in second child is connected to economic which language influences our perception of the world around us. What is it like to have a child when you circumstances, social provisions and already have one? What are the effects on even the climate. Publishing details the first child of getting a new brother or Lynn Berger’s style is literary, poetic, De tweede. Over het zijn en krijgen sister? And what does being the second but transparent. She writes lovingly on van een tweede kind (2019) signify in a world that revolves around family life without becoming saccharine 192 pp. Publisher: De Correspondent novelty and coming first? Second Thoughts: and has a good eye for the joyous but English sample translation available Reflections on Having and Being a Second grueling years with small children. Child is a fascinating quest, driven by that Inspired by writers like Rachel Cusk, Rights one burning desire: the desire to better Lydia Davis and Valeria Luiselli, this Janklow & Nesbit understand the second child, and the essay combines sibling science with Zoe Nelson [email protected] second time. The arrival of a second memoir and reflections on parenthood, child is nearly always less momentous drawing on insights from psychology, Photo: Judith van IJken and memorable, and the second in line biology, neuroscience and demographics never receives the exclusivity the first as well as conventional wisdom. has enjoyed. A must-read for any future or present Berger explores the historical differ- second time parents, and for second ences in the relationship between the children themselves.

Advance praise for Second Thoughts:

‘Once again, Lynn Berger proves herself to be the toughest thinker on the softest subjects.’ – Marja Pruis, journalist

‘An original and surprising book that manages to be moving without being sentimental.’ – Niña Weijers, author of The Consequences 7 Quality Non-Fiction From Holland Linda Polman Nobody Wants Them Europe and Its Refugees

Europe’s war against migrants

In the summer of 1938 in the French camps of Western Europe set up for Iron Linda Polman (b. 1960) is an spa town of Evian, the leaders of Europe Curtain refugees fleeing communist investigative journalist based in Amsterdam. She has worked in convened for what was to be the first dictators after the Second World War, to the various war zones and developing international summit on a European not very ‘safe zones’, such as those meant to countries such as Somalia, Rwanda, refugee crisis. The number of Jews protect refugees in Srebrenica in the 1990s, Haïti, Sierra Leone, Congo and attempting to flee Nazi-Germany had to the UN Refugee Agency’s mega-camps in Afghanistan. She is the author of, skyrocketed and refugee centres were Africa today. She sketches Europe’s tight among other titles, The Crisis Caravan, which was translated into urgently needed. Representatives from grip on the UNHCR, an organisation that is nine languages. Polman’s work has all of Western Europe attended, and supposed to protect the rights of millions of been discussed internationally, their arguments against taking in those refugees around the world and yet remains including on John Stewart’s The refugees sound only too familiar to us utterly dependent on European donations. Daily Show and in The New Yorker. today: their cultures would be endan- The UNHCR, therefore, has no choice but For Death Row Dollies, about European women who link their fates gered, their jobs and houses would be to flow with Europe’s political tides. to inmates on death row in the US, snatched, and the cohesion of their The journey ends on the Greek island she spent an extended period in societies would ultimately disintegrate. of Lesbos, the epicentre of the greatest Texas. When in the Netherlands, European refugee crisis since 1938. Polman lectures for university The only thing the conference did manage The arrival of a million refugees in journalism programs. to produce was contempt for Nazi-Germa- Europe was predictable long before it began Publishing details ny. While they critiqued Germany’s human in 2015, but the European administrations Niemand wil ze hebben. Europa en rights violations, not one of these ‘civilised’ failed to prepare for the event. What zijn vluchtelingen (February 2019) countries expressed any willingness to followed was chaos, political victories for 279 pp. actually save the Jews. In Germany, when extreme right-wing parties and Brexit, Publisher: Jurgen Maas English sample translation available the attendees had returned home, a newspa- fought at the expense of these refugees. per headline triumphantly declared: Linda Polman investigates what exactly Rights ‘Nobody wants them’. happened to the promise of ‘never again’ at Jurgen Maas How has Europe’s strategy regarding the foundation of the UN Refugee Conven- Uitgeverij Jurgen Maas the ‘War on Migration’ changed since 1938? tion of 1951. Has Europe, as the UN Human [email protected] In Nobody Wants Them, investigative Rights Council bitterly concluded in 2018, Photo: Patricia Hofmeester journalist Linda Polman takes her readers indeed ‘accepted even death as an effective on a journey through time, from the refugee anti-immigration tool’?

About The Crisis Caravan:

‘A testament to the limits of human suffering and of attempts to rescue some humanity.’ – Times Literary Supplement

About We Did Nothing:

‘This book recalls the reportages of Ryszard Kapuscinski and the black humour of Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene’s fiction.’ – The Guardian

‘One of the finest reporting journalists of the modern age.’ – The Evening Standard 8 Quality Non-Fiction From Holland Arjen Mulder As Plants See It A Plea for a Plant-based Planet

A story of courage and difficult decisions made in the nick of time

Without plants, animal life on earth create life on their own, converting some- Arjen Mulder (b. 1955), biologist cannot exist. Were plants to disappear, thing as elusive as light into food, growing and essayist, is the author of three essay collections: Living Systems the food chains, deprived of oxygen and and reproducing with an internal logic at (2002), The Woman for Whom nutrition, would immediately collapse. odds with the violent competition animals Cesare Pavese Committed Suicide And yet they remain a blind spot for the and humans find themselves entangled in. (2005), and the widely praised What 21st century human. In his clear and precise style, Mulder is Life (2014). Mulder’s works are brings us the ‘school of plants’. The first and multi-disciplinary and unconven- tional, containing insights from If anything, our behaviour today demon- only requisite for admission is the decision biology, media theory, anthropology strates a deep ignorance regarding our that life is worth living. Plants demand that and literature. In 2016 he published precarious dependence, while plants in we view the world and human achieve- The Success Shunner about Swiss their creative resilience have managed to ments differently, they instruct a solidarity thinker Adrien Turel. He lives in weather five global extinctions. Now that with other living creatures. In order to Amsterdam and teaches media theory and social semiotics in we face the sixth extinction, at our own understand plants as plants do, Mulder and Ghent. hands, who can save us? In As Plants See It, argues that we should not be killing them. biologist, philosopher and essayist Arjen He aligns himself with the natural philoso- Publishing details Mulder flips perspectives to see the world phers from ancient Greece and argues for Vanuit de plant gezien. as plants do. a new poetic biology based on protecting Pleidooi voor een plantaardige planeet (March 2019) Though we both form part of the same life rather than destroying it. 256 pp. life process on Earth, a plant’s priorities are Equally inspired and critical, As Plants Publisher: De Arbeiderspers radically different from those of a human. See It is an inventive treatise that fuses English sample translation available Everything that is obvious and important the biological with the philosophical, the to us, holds little or no importance or even personal with the scientific. In it, we see Rights De Arbeiderspers interest to plants. The opposite is also true: Mulder searching once again for the Jolijn Spooren that which is unimportant to humans is mystery of life, a journey he described in [email protected] crucial to plants. Plants could not care less his award-winning essay collection What about the evolutionary ‘struggle for life’. is Life as: ‘Life is what gives us value in a Photo: Koos Breukel They survive precisely by working together completely indifferent universe. That’s and creating room for one another. Plants where our quest begins and ends.’

About What is Life:

‘In What is Life analytical precision fuses with astonishingly honest and personal essayism.’ – Jury report of the Wijnaendts Franckenprijs 2018

‘Mulder’s stimulating, often personal essays, come over to the reader as inspirational, a sort of inspirational stimulus to the anxious.’ – NRC Handelsblad 9 Quality Non-Fiction From Holland Sanne Blauw The Biggest Bestseller of All Time (with This Title) How Numbers Lead and Mislead Us

An investigation into the way numbers seduce, influence and mislead us

Numbers are everywhere – they might suddenly appear a lot more dramatic. Sanne Blauw (b. 1986) has an MSc denote calories, work targets, statistics For example, recent research has shown in Econometrics and completed her PhD in 2014 with the dissertation or the temperature outside – and while that if you eat processed meat, you have a ‘Well-to-do or Doing Well’, on income they are not as objective as they seem, twenty percent greater chance of develop- inequality, trust and happiness. But, figures still colour and shape our daily ing bowel cancer. Western media sources she asked herself, can you measure landscape. Econometrist and journalist immediately jumped on this. Newspaper happiness? This question launched Sanne Blauw penned this book for people headlines declared ‘bacon just as carcino- her career in journalism. She became Numeracy Correspondent for who don’t know anything about num- genic as smoking’. But anyone reading the De Correspondent, with one goal: bers, yet face them every day in some actual research papers will discover that to unveil the bizarre influence of form or other. Unfortunately, we are the chances of getting cancer if you don’t numbers on our lives. Sanne Blauw inclined to take all these figures present- eat unprocessed meat are five percent. has also given a TEDx Talk on how ed to us as true, while all too often they And if you do eat it, that probability goes to deal with misleading numbers in the news. What should you do when are misleading or simply incorrect. up to six percent: a lot less shocking, but you meet a poll in the wild? How do in the meantime panic has struck. you tame a graph? And how can you All kinds of things can go wrong with Sanne Blauw takes the reader on a keep from drowning in a flood of numbers. Prejudices may be hidden journey through history from Florence misleading statistics? within measurement methods, samples Nightingale – who was not just a lifesaving Publishing details might not be representative and connec- nurse but a nineteenth-century queen of Het bestverkochte boek ooit (met tions can be made that are not actually infographics – to one of the great revolu- deze titel). Hoe cijfers ons leiden, there. And it is exactly these problems that tions of our time: the rise of algorithms, verleiden en misleiden (2018) come into play in times of big data and arti- which, of course, are not as neutral as we 208 pp. ficial intelligence. Now that the amount would like to believe. With The Biggest Publisher: De Correspondent 16,000 copies sold of data is so large and the algorithms so Bestseller of All Time (with This Title) English sample translation available precise, we need to start becoming more Sanne Blauw hopes to put numbers back aware of the finer details and more in- in their place. Not on a pedestal, not in Rights formed of the pitfalls. the trash, but where they belong: Janklow & Nesbit Sometimes the figures are correct, alongside words. Zoe Nelson [email protected] but the context is missing. Threats can Rights sold UK (Sceptre), Germany (DVA) and Lebanon (Arab Scientific)

Photo: Lise Straatsma

‘Fortunately, Blauw makes her book interesting and applicable to everyone, even if you don’t have much affinity with figures – because everyone could use a crash course in numbers.’ – New Scientist

‘Food for thought.’ – Elsevier

‘Although they are not as objective as they seem, figures do determine what our life looks like.’ – de Volkskrant 10 Quality Non-Fiction From Holland Rens Bod A World Full of Patterns The History of Knowledge-Making

A history of human knowledge and how we acquire it

The idea that the world can be under- inhabited world. Focusing on ten disci- Rens Bod (b. 1965) is professor of stood through patterns and the principles plines – astronomy, mathematics, mechan- Digital Humanities at the University of Amsterdam and president of the that govern them is one of the most ics, medicine, linguistics, historiography, international Society for the History important human insights and may be our music, philology, law and art theory – he of Humanities. His previous book greatest survival strategy. Our search for examines to what degree their progressions A New History of the Humanities. patterns and principles, and the system- and protagonists can be considered The Search for Principles and atic knowledge they form, began at least interwoven with one another and to what Patterns from Antiquity to the Present (Oxford University Press) 40,000 years ago when striped patterns degree we can speak of global trends. was translated into seven languages were engraved on mammoth’s bones. Building on his previous book, at times and awarded numerous prizes. amending it with new findings, A World Since then, which roads has human Full of Patterns will offer startling connec- Publishing details knowledge wandered to develop into tions to a wide audience. Bod reveals that Een wereld vol patronen. De geschiedenis van kennis (2019) today’s scientific understanding of nature inoculation was invented in China rather 488 pp. and culture? Which detours and dead than Europe; that many of the fundamental Publisher: Prometheus ends? In a work of unprecedented scope, aspects of mathematics and astronomy English sample translation available Rens Bod removes the Western natural were in fact first discovered by the Indian sciences from their often-central role to Kerala-school (and only later by figures like Rights English world rights: bring us the first global history of human Leibniz and Pascal); and that our approach- Rens Bod via [email protected] knowledge. Having sketched the history es to law provided fundamental models for All other rights: of the humanities in his acclaimed and astronomy and linguistics from Roman to Prometheus ground-breaking A New History of the Ottoman times – to name but a few. Ronit Palache Humanities, Bod now adopts a broader In this vital and pioneering work, [email protected] perspective, stepping beyond classical Bod fulfils what he sees as the historian’s Photo: Bob Bronshoff antiquity, back to the Stone Age in order responsibility: he preserves and grants us to answer the question: where did our access to history’s goldmine of ideas. His knowledge of the world today begin and prose brims with enthusiasm as he flies how did it develop? across continents and eras. The result is an His approach is poly-centric and enlightening, joyful symphony, a stirring multi-disciplinary, drawing on simultane- chorus of human inquisitiveness extend- ous developments in all five corners of the ing throughout the ages.

About A New History of the Humanities

‘An extraordinarily ambitious undertaking […]. What Bod has written is not just a ‘new’ history. It is the first ever history of its kind.’ – The Times Literary Supplement

‘A New History of the Humanities is based on a wealth of historical material, presented with a profundity and comprehensiveness that until recently were virtually inconceivable.’ – NRC Handelsblad

‘Bod succeeds in surprising us with his original interpretations and astonishing erudition. An extraordinarily impressive performance.’ – Trouw 11 Quality Non-Fiction From Holland Lieke Marsman The Following Scan Will Last Five Minutes On the Meaning and Consequences of Illness in our Society

An exhilarating encounter between poetry and the essay form

In The Following Scan Will Last Five Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals Lieke Marsman (b. 1990) is one of Minutes Lieke Marsman investigates and Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag the leading young talents in Dutch literature. Her unique style combines through ten poems and an essay how provided inspiration. In addition to prose, poetry and essay genres. After a sick body relates to a sick world. accounts of their personal experiences, her acclaimed debut poetry collection ‘My little cancer book’ Marsman both books provide an analysis of the in 2010, she was considered a called it on Twitter. status of cancer and cancer patients in prodigy by many. Her first novel, society, an approach Marsman also adopts. The Opposite of a Human Being, published in 2017, was nominated for But this essay is not just about being ill, it The Following Scan Will Last Five the ECI Literature Prize. It is an also delves deep into political issues that Minutes is not merely introspective, it is engaged, hybrid book in which essay become personal. The book is a light-foot- also a plea to look around and assume and poetry are interwoven to highlight ed rally against populism, against facile one’s social responsibility in a sick society. the problems of climate change. political assumptions about informal care This essay is about much more than just a Publishing details and about the consequences of being ill. young woman struggling with cancer, it De volgende scan duurt vijf minuten At first, twenty-seven-year-old Lieke addresses the meaning and consequences (2018) Marsman’s shoulder pain was diagnosed of illness in our modern neoliberal society. 64 pp. as a repetitive strain injury, she was a Publisher: Pluim writer after all. But when the pain finally ‘I had already inserted myself into the Full English translation available (Translation: Sophie Collins) became unbearable, scans revealed a common narrative of an overworked malignant tumour: a rare form of cartilage twenty-something-year-old. Successful Rights cancer not usually found in younger career, hectic social life, high ambitions – Pluim people. Behind her right shoulder blade aren’t these the signs of an impending Evi Hoste was a lump the size of a grapefruit. Mars- burn-out? … Further tests were necessary, [email protected] man went under the knife a week later. said the neurologist, but mine was not an Rights sold Tumour removed, cancer gone, problem urgent case. The waiting list for an MRI UK (Liverpool University Press, solved – except that her existence had been scan was about two months long, and I Pavilion) turned upside down. She decided to write should prepare myself for the likelihood down her thoughts and observations in that nothing would be found.’ Photo: Simone Peek order to give shape to the chaos she was (trs Sophie Collins) caught up in.

‘Ten poems and an essay about cancer, for which Marsman was treated. But it also about so much more: about loneliness, being on benefits, economic sensationalism in culture, and freedom of expression.’ – NRC Handelsblad

‘A very personal text with a high degree of urgency. Every word strikes home.’ – Meander magazine

The press on The Opposite of a Human Being:

‘This is a surprisingly playful novel, ideologically relevant, an accumulation of ideas, pessimistic and optimistic, interesting on every page, and despite the style changes, surprisingly consistent.’ – De Groene Amsterdammer 12 Quality Non-Fiction From Holland Menno ter Braak National Socialism: Doctrine of Rancour

A classic indictment of populism

In 1937, Dutch critic and essayist Menno Rather than simply choosing one ideology Menno ter Braak (1902 – 1940) ter Braak wrote what today stands as one over others, Ter Braak viewed National was a Dutch critic whose shrewd intellect and challenging of precious- of the most scathingly perceptive indict- Socialism as the fulfilment and perversion ness in art earned him the title of the ments of the Nazi movement. Written for of both democracy and socialism, and ‘conscience of Dutch literature’. and published by the anti-fascist ‘Com- thereby the pure embodiment of the He was the Netherlands’ most mittee of Vigilance’, National Socialism rancour inherent within the two, and important writer, essayist and as a Doctrine of Rancour expressed his within our culture as a whole. rancour culture critic during the Interbellum period. Fervently opposed to urgent concern for the growing popular- must be recognised for what it is, National Socialism, he took his life ity of National Socialism. as well as where it stems from. And yet, upon the German invasion in the can equality exist without rancour? spring of 1940, within hours of the Three years later, when the Nazi’s invaded In a world in which populist leaders are surrender. After the Second World the Netherlands, Ter Braak would take his once again marketing themselves as War, his work continued to serve as an important point of reference own life. The pamphlet went on to become guardians of democracy, in which political within circles. his most famous work. Using Nietzsche’s parties are playing to feelings of hatred theory of history as a lens, Ter Braak and anger, the startling parallels and Publishing details identified ressentiment as the inevitable continuing relevance of Ter Braak’s lucidly Het national-socialisme consequence of idealising equality in human diagnosis make this essential als rancuneleer (1937, 2019) Publisher: Van Oorschot democratic societies and, as such, the reading for anyone looking to understand 56 pp. fountainhead of Nazi populism. today’s political climate. It also presents English sample translation available According to Ter Braak, humans are a word of warning. never equal in terms of biology and In the wake of its renewed importance Free of rights sociology. He goes on to argue that in the for thinkers and the public debate, re- Photo: Letterkundig Museum democratising process, where equality as nowned publisher Van Oorschot has an ideal collides with reality people reissued a new edition. increasingly experience inequality as an injustice, leading them to hate and to envy.

‘Menno ter Braak stands as one of the most perceptive, anti-authoritarian Dutch of the 20th century. Even when there were political risks involved, he stood up for European humanistic values.’ – Humanistische Canon.nl

‘Hitler’s rise changed everything for Ter Braak, who’d been an eternal student until then. After 1933, he developed into a politician without a party, one who investigated and rejected the great ideologies.’ – Historisch Nieuwsblad 13 Quality Non-Fiction From Holland

In honour of the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt’s death, Rembrandt the Netherlands is dedicating 2019 to celebrating Holland’s most famous master and the Dutch Golden Age. Rembrandt Year has also prompted a number of Year 2019 authors to call for renewed attention to Rembrandt as an artist, a man and an inspiration. Four authors on the revered Dutch master

The roots of Rembrandt’s talent Unraveling the myths around Rembrandt

Onno Blom Machiel Bosman The Young Rembrandt. Rembrandt’s Fall. A history of A Biography misconceptions and alternative facts

De jonge Rembrandt. Rembrandts val. Een biografie (October 2019) Een geschiedenis van misvattingen en alternatieve feiten (September 2019) Rights: De Bezige Bij, Athenaeum – Polak & Van Gennep Marijke Nagtegaal [email protected] Rights: Singel uitgeverijen, Jolijn Spooren Rights sold: UK (Pushkin Press) [email protected] English proposal available Sample translation available

We have little more than a handful of stories from his earliest What the history books tell us about Rembrandt is the product of biographers – so who was Rembrandt, really? What secrets a game of whispers. Scholars parrot and echo one another, while lie hidden in his paintings? And what was the city of Leiden the image of the artist as he was blurs even further. Our picture like when he grew up? Dutch biographer Onno Blom tells of Rembrandt has become cliché. Historian Machiel Bosman dives the story of the young Rembrandt in early 17th-century Leiden. back into the sources, follows the money and exposes the current This book will bring the figure of Rembrandt close to the historical canon. reader, and will bring to life the full-blooded spirit of the Dutch Golden Age.

A guide that will teach The story behind the creation of one of the reader to see the most famous paintings in the world

Wieteke van Zeil Gabri van Tussenbroek Rembrandt. What you Amsterdam and The Night Watch. see is what you are The men in Rembrandt’s masterpiece Iedereen zijn Rembrandt. Wat je ziet ben je zelf (May 2019) Amsterdam en de Nachtwacht. De mannen op het meesterwerk Rights: Atlas Contact, Hayo Deinum van Rembrandt (October 2018) [email protected] Rights: Prometheus, Ronit Palache [email protected]

For three and a half centuries people have been attributing Painted in 1640, The Night Watch is the highlight of the Gallery of all sorts of meanings to Rembrandt’s work. Their perspec- Honour in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It was around that year tives have been dictated by their time and culture. A view on that seventeen people took the initiative to commission a portrait by Rembrandt therefore also serves as a mirror to the beholder. the most important painter of his time. Why did seventeen men decide How should we look at Rembrandt’s work? What does to allow Rembrandt to immortalise them in his famous painting? Who Rembrandt actually tell us through his art, and with which were they? And what was the city of Amsterdam like when these means? What meanings can we draw from his works and leading figures were captured with a few brush strokes? how can we look at them today? 14 Quality Non-Fiction From Holland New & Noteworthy Published in the Netherlands

An intrepid journalist shines Evolution in the city new light on the Taliban

Bette Dam Menno Schilthuizen Searching for the Enemy. Darwin Comes to Town. The Story of a Terrorist How the Urban Jungle Who Wanted to Be a Friend Drives Evolution

Op zoek naar de vijand. Darwin in de stad. Het verhaal van een terrorist Evolutie in de urban jungle die een vriend wilde zijn Publisher: Atlas Contact Publisher: De Bezige Bij Rights: Louisa Pritchard Rights: Marianne Schönbach [email protected] Literary Agency Rights sold: UK (Quercus Books) [email protected] Full English translation available English sample translation available We are marching towards a ‘By watching the evolutionary After September 11th 2001, the Taliban were considered the prime future in which three-quarters play as it runs in urban enemy in the war on terror. A fair judgement? Journalist Bette of humans live in cities, and theatres, not just wildish ones, Dam travelled to Afghanistan to unearth the truth about a large portion of the planet’s Schilthuizen and some col- the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar. In describing his life, landmass is urbanized. With leagues – you might think of Dam picks apart the manipulative forces behind an image of much of the rest covered by them as postmodern biologists, hostility. She reveals with clinical precision the ways the Taliban human-shaped farms, making the best of highly were turned into an enemy, the involvement of the media, and pasture, and plantations, urbanized twenty-first-century the consequences this still has for Afghanistan and the growing where can nature go? To the landscapes – have noticed threat of terror worldwide. cities is Menno Schilthuizen’s that evolution’s tempo can answer in this remarkable book. be surprisingly brisk.’ – New York Review of Books

The power of the Arctic The biography of John Gabriel Stedman

Bernice Notenboom Roelof van Gelder The Arctic. My Biography Poet in the Jungle. John of the North Pole Gabriel Stedman 1744 – 1797

Arctica. Mijn biografie van Dichter in de jungle. John Gabriel de Noordpool Stedman 1744 – 1797 (2018)

Publisher: Prometheus Publishers: Atlas Contact Rights: Prometheus, Ronit Palache Rights: AtlasContact, Hayo Deinum [email protected] [email protected]

For many the Arctic remains an John Gabriel Stedman was unpopular and obscure place. a Scottish-Dutch officer and It is the most mysterious and least author of Narrative of a Five-year examined area in the world, as big Expedition against the Revolted as Europe and just as intriguing as Negroes of Surinam, published a distant planet. in 1796. It described in detail the Bernice Notenboom (b. 1962) is terrible treatment plantation a polar traveller, climate journalist ‘Holland’s best-known owners inflicted on the enslaved. ‘The exciting life of John and filmmaker who has undertaken female polar explorer The book very soon became an Gabriel Stedman is re- three expeditions to the North Pole. can count on admiration international success, rendering counted by his biographer She has truly caught the polar bug for her toughness and it an important instrument in the with level-headed precision.’ – a fascination for its breathtaking determination.’ fight against slavery. Poet in the – NRC Handelsblad beauty and silence, for the intense – De Volkskrant Jungle is the well-told life history physical experience of travelling in of this distinguished British- the freezing cold. Noteboom also Dutch soldier and noted author. reports back on the visible effects of global warming. 15 Quality Non-Fiction From Holland Recent Translations This is a selection of recently published translations from the Dutch. For more information please go to our online database of translations en.vertalingendatabase.nl.

Maarten Hidskes Willemijn van Dijk Merlijn Schoonenboom Di Belanda tak seorang pun Via Roma. The history Was ist schön? Wie unser mempercayai saya [At Home, of Rome in fifty streets Geschmack sich wandelt Nobody Believes Me] Via Roma De nimf en de bunny Thuis gelooft niemand mij Published in English by Baylor University Published in German by Argobooks (2018). Published in Indonesian by Yayasan Pustaka Press (2018). Translated by Robert A. Naborn. Translated by Marlene Müller-Haas. Obor (2018). Translated by Maya Sutedja- Also in German (DVA). Liem, Nurhayu Santoso and Susi Moeiman.

Arnold van de Laar Jan Six Eva Meijer Under the Knife. Le ‘Portrait d'un jeune homme’ Mistä valaat laulavat? Eläinten A History of Surgery in de Rembrandt kiehtova kieli [Animal Languages] Dierentalen Portret van een jonge man 28 remarkable Operations Published in Finnish by Art House (2019). Published in French by Payot (2018). Onder het mes Translated by Mari Janatuinen. Translated by Aline Oudoul. Published in English by John Murray (UK) Also in Czech (Grada Publishing), English (2018). Translated by Andy Brown. (John Murray), German (Matthes & Seitz), Also in Chinese (United Sky), Czech French (Presses de la Cité), Korean (Kachi), (Dobrovsk), English (St. Martin’s Press, USA), Polish (Marginesy), Turkish (Kaplumbaa German (Pattloch), Hebrew Tchelet Books, Books), Swedish (Svante Weyler). Korean (Eulyoo), Polish (Literackie), Russian (Eksmo), Spanish (Salamandra), Turkish (Koç University Press). Quality16 Non-Fiction From Holland Quality Non-Fiction From Holland

Sjeng Scheijen Arjen Mulder The Avant-Gardists As Plants See It

Karwan Fatah-Black Sanne Blauw Paths through Slavery The Biggest Bestseller of All Time (with This Title) Thomas Rueb Laura H. Rens Bod A World Full of Patterns Lynn Berger Second Thoughts Lieke Marsman The Following Scan Linda Polman Will Last Five Minutes Nobody Wants Them Menno ter Braak National Socialism: Doctrine of Rancour

Quality Non-Fiction from Holland is published by the Dutch Foundation for Literature. The bulletin is distributed to foreign publishers and editors. If you would like to receive Quality Non-Fiction from Holland, please contact [email protected].

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