‘Quite right,’ was Gerrit Krol’s characteristically laconic response upon being awarded the most important literary award in the Netherlands. Quite rightly indeed, the jury stated that Krol’s works are an abundance that never tires: ‘Krol approaches everything he creates like a new-born babe: he never loses his sense of astonishment or his openness.’ Krol’s themes are surprising, but his way with words is even less conventional. His novels tend towards poetry, his poems are prosaic, and his essays read like short stories.

Science and technology are the main ingredients of Rondo Veneziano, as in pretty much all Krol’s novels and stories – and so is love. Reason and emotion, man and woman, poetry and technology, order and chaos, form and content – these are complex contradictions that Krol connects, as his writing passes seamlessly back and forth from the cryptic to the poetic, from the contemplative to the funny. With the uniqueness of his themes and approach, Krol is one of the most remarkable Dutch writers of the past forty years. With Rondo Veneziano this reputation is once again confirmed.