Dirk Jan Roeleven (b. 1961) works as a filmmaker, creating items for a variety of Dutch TV programmes. His writing debut The New Bicycle, which sold over 15,000 copies, takes the reader on a journey from Italy to the Netherlands and shares Roeleven’s thoughts about his father’s early passing.
(Pluim, 2020, 296 pages)
It is an absolutely insane project: a couple, both in their late fifties, together for decades, decides to take their old banger, a third-hand Japanese Subaru, back to the place where it was manufactured. Spontaneously, because they don’t feel like dumping the car at the scrapyard after so many years of loyal service. And what’s more: ‘The lack of a reason is a good impetus to do something, I think. Futility as meaning.’ Friends respond with admiration, envy and disbelief: ‘Everyone dreams of doing something like this, but you go and do it.’ And off they go – driving their 17-year-old Subaru Forester back to the factory in Tokyo.
