(De Geus, 2002, 132 pages)

TussenEenPersoon, Esther Gerritsen’s first novel, is the oppressive monologue delivered by a woman to her boyfriend whom she has literally bound and gagged and takes place entirely in their home on the attic floor of a house from where they are supposed to be moving that day. The young woman has tied up her lover, laid him on the bed and started to talk to him. About herself, her family, their relationship.

(De Geus, 2005, 220 pages)

In Normale dagen (Ordinary Days), Esther Gerritsen’s second novel, we follow the playwright Lucie who, after a three-year absence, is returning to her grandparents’ home in the Gelderland countryside because her grandpa is dying. She grew up on the farm with her grandpa and grandma. Lucie is working on a play about the so-called Oklahoma City bomber and therefore is reading his biography. Throughout the novel links are made or suggested between the experiences of Timothy McVeigh and the situation in which Lucie finds herself with her grandparents.

(De Geus, 2010, 192 pages)

‘The day I met Ine was the day I began to rise in the air.’ So opens Suiperduif (Superdove), Esther Gerritsen’s fourth novel, about eleven-year-old Bonnie, who turns into a super hero on that special day. Yet this is not an adventure story; rather, it is a skilled account of Bonnie’s life seen from inside her mind, from inside the mind of an adolescent and one who’s heading for a mental breakdown.

(De Geus, 2012, 224 pages)

Esther Gerritsen excels at writing fast, humorous dialogue, which she uses to capture the lack of understanding between people, the ways they deliber­ately talk at cross purposes so as to edge around each other’s problems. Craving is a harrowing story about the impossibility of loving and truly making contact with others, written so drily and pointedly that you regularly laugh out loud as you read.

(De Geus, 2014, 224 pages)

Esther Gerritsen has written a novel about a confused woman who does something gruesome, but her style allows readers to sympathise with this tragicomic anti-hero. Few writers are as good at dialogue and absurd situations as Gerritsen, who delves into themes such as mourning, growing up and parent­hood.

(De Geus, 2016, 94 pages)

Esther Gerritsen is known for leavening her psychological dramas with wit and realistic dialogue. Brother is vintage Gerritsen, a short, accessible, gripping novella, ending on a positive note. It was the 2016 Dutch Book Week Gift selection with a printing of close to 650,000 copies.

(De Geus, 2018, 224 pages)

Completely against the established rules a new guest at the monastery is received by Jacob, the concierge. Initially Jacob acts reluctant, as he is aware of the hierarchy within the order. But gradually a relationship develops between the devout concierge and his guest, who has a crime weighing on his conscience.