Truus Matti (b. 1961) has worked as an editor and production coordinator at a number of different publishing houses. As she wanted to develop her own stories, she applied to study at the Rietveld Academy, where she created stories in the form of films and animation. Over time, her focus shifted to writing. Vertrektijd (Departure Time, 2007) is her debut as a novelist.
(Lemniscaat, 2007, 200 pages)
A girl is stumbling across a vast expanse of sand in the pouring rain. She does not know who she is, what her name is or where she is going. Then she arrives at a hotel, run by a grey fox and a white rat, who are the same size as her. She decides to stay there and to find out who she is. But all that the following days bring is more puzzles. The staircase to the top floor, where someone plays the piano all day long, is nowhere to be found. And what is the significance of the scraps of writing that blow in over the sand flat? This mysterious fairytale is a pleasure to read in itself. But newcomer Truus Matti also succeeds in ingeniously weaving the fairytale into a realistic story about…
