Kester Freriks is the author of NRC Handelsblad’s much-praised feature ‘Birdwatching’ and its series ‘Scenes from Nature’, as well as fiction, poems and essays. His novel Hölderlin’s Tower (1981) was awarded the Van der Hoogt Prize, and his other books include the biography Secret East Indies. The life of Maria Dermoût 1888-1962 (2000) and the novel Dahlias and Snow (2008). His work has been translated into German and English.
(Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep, 2008, 223 pages)
At seventeen Kester Freriks, a passionate birdwatcher, found a peregrine falcon, Falco peregrinus, in the peatland of the eastern Netherlands. The bird of prey had missed its quarry in the air and incurred minor injuries as a result. Freriks took it home and put it in a cardboard box. Then he bought everything the secondhand bookseller in his village could come up with on the subject. He wanted to know what to feed his peregrine.
