(De Bezige Bij, 2002, 207 pages)

In this novel Schröder has brilliantly and menacingly depicted the fascination for the ocean deeps. He conjures up the Posen with stark clarity. You feel the wind, the sharp light, and the slow swell of the sea. His sentences flow, tinkling, crystal-clear and calm. Above all Schröder is a master at creating atmosphere. However clear and calm his sentences may be, below the surface yawn the dark depths.

(De Bezige Bij, 2009, 191 pages)

Novels by Allard Schröder invariably take place in a shadowy realm, on the borders of life and death. The setting always has its own peculiar significance – due partly to Schröder’s marvellous descriptions of atmosphere and landscape. In De hydrograaf (The Hydrographer), which won the AKO Literature Prize, the ship in which the main characters make their long voyage becomes a kind of Flying Dutchman. In his previous book, De econome (The Economist, 2008), an ambitious businesswoman loses herself in a no-man’s land.

(De Bezige Bij, 2016, 448 pages)

The tenth novel of one of the Netherlands’ finest stylists is about the power of memory. Or rather, the power of memory to deceive. Schröder paints a sensitive, sensual and colourful portrait of a man who is transported back in time to his first love by the smell of a cigarette.