Primordial Soup
'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.
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 available
Publisher
Das Mag
Daniël van der Meer
Daniel@dasmag.nl
Rights
Marianne Schönbach Literary Agency
Marisca van der Mark
m.vandermark@schonbach.nl
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.”
Bregje Hofstede
The Sky over Paris
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.
B. Carrot
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Magda is a young teacher at a primary school in Warsaw. She is caring, kind, responsible and has her life in order. But then she gets pregnant. The pregnancy is unwanted, but abortion is illegal in Poland. The subject is so controversial in Poland’s conservative political climate that it’s hard to talk about, even with her friends and family. The only person she is able to confide in is her sister.
Joost de Vries
Higher Powers
It’s the early decades of the 20th century. James Welmoed is too British for his Dutch school – just like he’ll be too Dutch for London later in life. In 1930s Indonesia, he is an inscrutable member of the colonial establishment. No one knows what to make of him – including Elisabeth van Elsenburg, an eighteen-year-old so witty she could only be the brainchild of an author with a keen intellect and boundless dexterity. She’ll grow up to be a writer, but first she embarks on a love affair with Welmoed which, even though it will be cut short, will shape both their lives.
Daan Heerma van Voss
No Goodbye Today
‘Someone is already going to die in this chapter,’ the nameless narrator cautions on the very first page of No Goodbye Today. En route to his holiday destination, Oskar van Bohemen collapses at Schiphol Airport, which turns out to be a place of departure in more ways than one. From there, we follow his three grown children, who each had their own difficult relationship with him and experience his death in very different ways.
