P.F. Thomése

By the time P.F. Thomése (b. 1958) won the AKO Literature Prize in 1991 for his novella collection 'Zuidland' (Southland, 1990), he had already earned a reputation as a meticulous stylist with a sophisticated sense of humour, and an impassioned advocate of the primacy of the imagination in literature.

Fiction

In the course of his career he has developed an astounding range, from the intensely personal Schaduwkind (Shadow Child, 2003) – his literary response to the death of his young daughter – and the romantic tragedy De weldoener (A Girl of His Own, 2010) to the biting political satire of Vladiwostok! (2007) and the sleazy slapstick of J. Kessels: The Novel (2009). In 2015 he published The Underwater Swimmer.

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P.F. Thomése

Shadow Child

This is a record in just over one hundred pages of P.F. Thomése’s thoughts and feelings following the sudden death of his baby daughter Isa, only a few weeks old. He dissects his own desperation. Not in any dramatic lament, but in precise, carefully worded notes. He divulges few details of the death itself. We are not told its cause or which hospital she was taken to. 'Shadow Child' is the story of a search, a search for meaning, for understanding, for something to hold on to.

Part ofFiction