10 Books from Holland ederlands N letterenfonds dutch foundation for literature 2016 2 Books from Holland This Is What We Share This year the Netherlands and Flanders are guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The Dutch Foundation for Literature, which is As an introduction to the variety that Dutch and Frisian organizing the related events along with the Flemish literature have to offer, we’ve collected together a batch Literature Fund, stimulates the promotion of Dutch- and of new and exciting titles that we’d like to present to you. Frisian-language literature worldwide. We’re presenting In our various brochures you’ll find novels, non-fiction, our authors under the heading ‘This Is What We Share’. children’s and young adult literature, graphic novels and poetry. These are the stories we share. Ultimately it’s More than seventy writers in different genres will be not about our language or our country: let it be the making public appearances at the Fair. Naturally we’re stories that convince you. proud of the more than 300 translations of Dutch- language titles that are appearing in German as a result of the choice of the Netherlands and Flanders as guest of honour, and they will be receiving huge attention from Here, now, in Frankfurt, or later, elsewhere in the world: the media and the reading public this autumn. Willkommen. Barbara den Ouden Tiziano Perez Agnes Vogt Alexandra Koch Fiction – France, Italy, Spain, Managing Director Children’s Books and YA Schwob (Modern Classics), Eastern Europe, Latin America, Fiction – Brazil, China, Japan [email protected] Frisian Literature Russia, Graphic Novels [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Are you looking for a translation grant? A Dutch translator? Advice on a specific book you are considering? Rights information? Our colleagues will be happy to help you further. Victor Schiferli Thomas Möhlmann Mireille Berman Fiction – Germany, UK and US, Poetry, Fiction in the Arab World Non-Fiction Scandinavia, Israel, South Africa [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] For an online catalogue of Dutch books in translation: www.vertalingendatabase.nl. 3 Books from Holland Margriet de Moor Of Birds and People A tender, sensitively written novel in which revenge and love form an impressive alliance Margriet de Moor’s stunning new novel made up everything her interrogators Publishing details is the story of a family in which the wanted to hear. ‘it slowly trickled into Van vogels en mensen (2016) 336 pp., 60,399 words perspective flits between members, from my eyes, hands and brain, heavy and English sample available a thoughtful father to his three sons, to gruesome, drip, drip, drip.’ a woman who loves all three sons and Louise soon retracts her confession, Rights their father, and to Marie Lina, the true but is still convicted. Her young daughter, De Bezige Bij love of son Rinus, a wildlife manager at Marie Lina, grows up largely without her Marijke Nagtegaal [email protected] Schiphol, and their little son Olivier. mother and sets her sights on revenge. Uta Matten ‘You are revenge. You are malice. You have [email protected] Marie Lina’s entrance into the novel casts grown up with a special proclivity for www.debezigebij.nl a black shadow over the family. Marie ruthless violence.’ Lina’s mother, Louise Bergman, has been How will this end? Does Marie Lina Rights sold Germany (Hanser Verlag) convicted of the murder of the elderly succeed in taking revenge on the true Bruno Mesdag. Louise is innocent. She culprit? Will Rinus be able to forgive Translated titles cleaned his house and cared for him her? How well does he really know her? Please see lovingly for years. The elderly Bruno, who These questions give Of Birds and People www.vertalingendatabase.nl had rescued a young man from drowning the tension of a hardboiled thriller. at an advanced age, was very fond of her. Margriet de Moor keeps readers Nevertheless, Louise confessed to the gripped through the sensitivity with murder, almost believing that she had which she reveals the thoughts and indeed committed it. How could that feelings of her characters, in language have happened? In recent years, the which is as delicate as it is tender. Even Netherlands has seen a remarkably high at horrific moments, her style remains number of people convicted of crimes loving and as light as a feather. De Moor but acquitted after serving their sentence puts us in the position of an eagle gliding because their confessions turn out to be above its prey. That is what literature is false. Under horrific pressure, ‘Louise B.’ capable of. ‘A clever, surprising, and above all stirring novel which stays with you long Margriet de Moor (b. 1941) is one of Holland’s after reading.’ most prominent writers. She started her writing – Opzij career in 1988 with a collection of stories, Op de rug gezien (Seen From Behind). A year later, Dubbelportret (Double Portrait) appeared, three About The Storm: novellas in one volume. De Moor’s highly praised ‘It’s hard to resist using first novel, Eerst grijs dan wit dan blauw (First the word “symphonic” to Grey, Then White, Then Blue, 1990) won her describe this exquisitely the AKO Literature Prize. Three years later, De virtuoos (The Virtuoso, 1993) was also composed, piercingly nominated for this prestigious award. She has moving story. De Moor since published novels such as Hertog van continues to scale Egypte (Duke of Egypt, 1996), Kreuzersonate increasingly impressive (The Kreutzersonata, 2001), De verdronkene heights.’ (Drowned, 2005), De kegelwerper (The Juggler, 2006). De schilder en het meisje (The Painter – Kirkus Review and the Girl, 2010) and Mélodie d’amour (2013). Her work has been translated into 24 languages. Photo: Maria Neefjes 4 Books from Holland Arnon Grunberg Birthmarks A razor-sharp absurdist novel written by a son for his dying mother Hannelore Grünberg-Klein, mother of seems doomed to failure, mainly because Publishing details Arnon Grunberg, died on 10th February he totally misjudges the people around Moedervlekken (2016) 399 pp., 125,000 words 2015. She was eighty-seven and a survivor him. He falls for the Nepalese home help, 60,000 copies sold of Auschwitz. Anyone who has followed for example. When she opens the door of English sample available Grunberg’s career will be conscious of his mother’s house wrapped in a towel, he what a blow that must have been. Their mistakenly takes it as an invitation to sex. Rights relationship was symbiotic. When she At the point when he overpowers her, Arnon Grunberg Agency Janny Nijhoff / Oscar van Gelderen died Grunberg wrote, ‘Now I’ll have to his mother comes into the room and he [email protected], live on as my mother.’ quarrels with her during the act. ‘You’re [email protected] worse than the Nazis,’ she says. Even before his mother became terminally The novel soon becomes absurd. On Rights sold ill, Grunberg announced his intention to page 72 we abruptly discover that Otto’s Germany (Kiepenheuer & Witsch) France (Heloise D’Ormesson) move back home for a while. He was to mother has ‘a prick’. She is actually his Brazil (Radio Londres) be ‘embedded’ in his mother’s house and father, who, after his mother’s death began write about the experience. A year after wearing her clothes out of grief and then Translated titles her death his major new novel appeared: took over her role. The situation grows Please see Birthmarks, a book that in no sense increasingly desperate. Kadoke is beaten www.vertalingendatabase.nl delivers what you would expect. up by the Nepalese home help’s boyfriend, Birthmarks is about a psychiatrist, Otto becomes more psychologically disturbed Kadoke. He was named after Otto Frank than his patients and develops birthmarks, but dislikes the Jewishness of his fore- benign ‘anxiety spots’. name. His surname is pronounced like a With his razor-sharp writing, Grunberg mangled ‘okay’, although he is anything makes the reader laugh and cry at the but okay. Or might it be kaput? Kadoke’s same time. There is, in the end, a glimmer mission in life is to guard people against of hope for the tragic and blundering death. His elderly mother for a start, for Kadoke, even as he gropes in the dark. whom he employs a Nepalese home help. Birthmarks is the ultimate attempt by In his job, too, he guards against death Arnon Grunberg to keep both his mother since he works for the emergency suicide- and himself alive through literature. prevention service. Kadoke’s mission ‘What Grunberg describes here is a prohibition on happiness that’s passed on from one generation to the next. He’s not the first to do it and it’s not the first time he’s Arnon Grunberg (b. 1971) is a celebrated done it, but he does it novelist, columnist and essayist; his work has extremely incisively.’ been published in more than twenty-six lan- – NRC Handelsblad guages and he has won countless prestigious prizes. He lives and works in New York. Grunberg writes for various European and ‘Birthmarks is a stylistic tour American newspapers and magazines as well as de force, a breath of fresh for NRC Handelsblad, Vrij Nederland, HUMO air and already one of my and the VPRO Gids. He has a blog at www. favourite Grunbergs.’ arnongrunberg.com and writes a daily column in the national newspaper de Volkskrant. – HUMO Birthmarks has been shortlisted for the ECI Literature Prize (formerly the AKO). Photo: Bob Bronshoff 5 Books from Holland Karin Amatmoekrim If Not the Father A moving novel about a complicated father-daughter relationship At the age of eleven, Karin learns that her eight children by different mothers.