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With her works of literary non-fiction, De herontdekking van het lichaam – over de burnout (The Rediscovery of the Body – On Burnout, 2016) and Slaap vatten (Catching Sleep, 2021), she found a wholly individual way to talk about the relevant topics for her generation. Her novella December (2022) is an pornographic pastiche of a study into the female orgasm.

Bregje Hofstede

The letters literally fall off the page. But it’s not just the book’s form that is unique. Hofstede impressively articulates how emotions like pain, wonderment and arousal coalesce as the protagonist gives birth: ‘Can you take it, he asked. Fuck, you can take a lot. Fucked me until I bled. And this? Can you take this too, my uterus asks, this payback for all the years of pounding?’ This opening scene sets the tone for the rest of the book, in which the protagonist is constantly looking for the balance between freedom and being at home. As part of this search, she writes a letter to her first love, Hade, who didn’t return her feelings and died young. She goes on group ayahuasca retreats led by a shaman. And she struggles with her life as a writer in rural France, where nothing ever happens. She yearns for the very same ‘big city’ they moved there to escape. Primordial Soup brims with a sense of urgency. For the reader, it’s even uncomfortable at times being so close to the protagonist. An intense, visceral, taboo-shattering book about our primal urges.Publishing details Oersoep (2023) 248 pages 42,000 words Sample translation availablePublisher Das Mag Daniël van der Meer <a href="mailto:Daniel@dasmag.nl">Daniel@dasmag.nl</a>Rights Marianne Schönbach Literary Agency Marisca van der Mark <a href="mailto:m.vandermark@schonbach.nl">m.vandermark@schonbach.nl</a>Translated titles De hemel boven Parijs [The Sky Above Paris]: Denmark (Tiderne Skifter, 2016), Egypt (Dar Oktob, 2019), Germany (C.H. Beck, 2015). Drift [Drive]: Germany (Oktaven, 2020). De herontdekking van het lichaam [The Rediscovery of the Body – On Burnout]: Germany (Oktaven, 2016). Slaap vatten [In Search of Sleep]: Bulgaria (Colibri, 2023), Germany (Oktaven, 2022), Poland (Linia, 2023), US (Greystone Books, 2023)

Sample Translation

There are no holds barred in this inspired, transgressive, trippy novel by Bregje Hofstede.

Bregje Hofstede spits, screams and pushes onto the pages of Primordial Soup.

In this breathtaking novel full of psychedelic trips, Bregje Hofstede slews between control and surrender.

More Fiction

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Fiction

Oersoep

'Primordial Soup' describes the life of a young Dutch woman who lives in a tiny hamlet in the French countryside with her boyfriend and who has just become a mother. Without any clear story arc, we see her taking her first steps as a mother – starting with labour. It’s immediately apparent that 'Primordial Soup' is a raw and wholly unique story.

Primordial Soup

Olivier, a French professor of art history, has settled into comfortable middle age, enjoying a tranquil Parisian lifestyle with his girlfriend Sylvie. He is woken from his slumber by the appearance of 21-year-old exchange student Fie, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mathilde, the young woman he loved and lost 25 years previously, having been reluctant to support her in pregnancy to the point of urging her to have an abortion. Mathilde had vanished from his life and he had regretted his decision ever since.Now Olivier becomes obsessed by Fie. The memories of happier days she rekin­dles make it increasingly impossible to settle for the anodyne security of his current life with Sylvie. When Fie discov­ers she is pregnant, history seems to be repeating itself. Once she has left her boyfriend and decided to keep the baby, Olivier takes on the role of her protector, even though it costs him his relationship, his career and his reputation. He leaves Paris with Fie at his side: ‘The accelerator burns beneath his foot and his happiness colours the sky. Everything he was afraid of has finally come to pass.’The love story is interspersed with Fie’s struggles to describe as lively as possible the artist’s search for the perfect work of art. These reflections add depth to the love story. She describes how Robert Rauschenberg once rubbed out a charcoal drawing by Willem de Kooning to create a new artwork Erased De Kooning Drawing because he was battling against the current of time, returning to the drawing’s begin­nings, ‘back to the moment when the artist’s idea was still unspoiled, the paper untouched’.

The kind of debut writers dream of: well-structured, mature in tone and packed with keen observations.

Similarly, Olivier is being given the chance to return to the moment when his idea of love was pure and unsullied, to make an almost existential choice in favour of romance and fatherhood. For the first time in his life, he dares to commit to someone. The Sky over Paris suggests that it is better to throw caution to the wind and make a start than to endlessly pursue the ideal, whether in art or in love. It is a rich theme, one that this mature novel from a young author both explores and embodies. Year of publication 2014Pages 223Copies sold 5,000

While Bregje Hofstede explores the paralysing pursuit of perfection, it is not an affliction to which she succumbs. The Sky over Paris is a dream debut.

More Bregje Hofstede

De hemel boven Parijs

An original take on love and art, Bregje Hofstede’s graceful and distinctive debut combines an enthralling and original romance with thought-provoking insights from her background as an art historian.

The Sky over Paris

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Non-Fiction

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