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This page of New Dutch Fiction presents a selection of books recently published in the Netherlands, books that have been included for their artistic and commercial success. Our aim is to showcase the best fiction from the Netherlands. Most titles will have been published recently and will have done very well in terms of reviews, sales and awards or nominations. We highly recommend the titles on this page, and would be happy to give further advice on noteworthy and interesting books for your publishing list. For more information please contact our fiction specialists.

Marente de Moor

‘I’m not saying the leg was to blame for everything.’ With this  startling opening sentence, Marente de Moor sets the tone for everything to follow in The Orthotist, her astonishing novel about a young man voicing the despair of a generation growing up in European cities who are seeing their dreams go up in smoke because housing has become unaffordable and impossible to find. Joost has dropped out of music school and finds himself working as an ‘orthotist’: he goes to elderly people’s homes to fit them with compression stockings or other orthotics. He spends his days on his knees before legs ‘tumescent with lymphatic fluid, smooth and hard like a washed-up pebble’.  The elderly people he works for live in giant houses, while he goes from cat-sitting gig to pull-out sofa, constantly terrified his girlfriend will leave him because of his homelessness. It is a predicament he shares with the rest of his generation – one of his friends is on Tinder every night to conquer a new bed to crash in. Joost solves his problem by secretly moving into a client’s attic and letting his girlfriend believe the homeowner consented to this arrangement. This propulsive storyline takes The Orthotist into mysterious, Gothic territory, reminiscent of Dostoevsky and Oscar Wilde.     Meanwhile, De Moor – who has long been considered one of the best and most original authors in the Dutch-speaking world – effortlessly weaves her protagonist’s psychology through the heart of the novel’s social indictment and reflections on the decline of Western culture. The people that the orthotist is trying to keep in one piece all have vast libraries – once they pass away, literature and imagination are at risk. In a world where everything is virtual (‘We hit SAVE all day long, but we don’t hold onto anything’, De Moor writes), where thoughts are no longer recorded, literature itself ends up becoming homeless, too.

Head and heart – but above all lots of leg, which De Moor manages to turn into a highly literary body part. A neatly bandaged leg something that’s itching and festering. The plot peels away one layer after another, exposing the fetid rot – horrifying, fascinating, delicious.

How much longer can the city pretend everything is fine? Those who have been pushed to the margins of society gradually lose their minds. No wonder, then, that the orthotist is not a reliable narrator. Ranting and raving with verve, shifting between humor and tragedy, he recounts his wonderings after he lost his housing.

The Bandager, is an impressive addition to De Moor’s oeuvre.. It’s an assured novel and an original reflection on the value of her own profession. At the end of the day, does writing matter? And does reading?

Book

Wonderful novel that is both an indictment of the housing crisis and a thrilling edge-of-the-seat adventure

Asset

Assets

Lotte de Boer

De Bandagist

Marente de Moor’s electrifying new novel shows how the homelessness and forced itineracy of an entire generation of twentysomethings represent a form of injustice. Its brilliant narrator – equal parts irresistible and unreliable – will have you spellbound from the first page to the last.

The Bandager

Auke Hulst

Vos Jacobsz is a highly intelligent young man who rails against the subservient position that seems to be his birthright. As the illegitimate son of a nobleman, he feels he is entitled to a better life. He tries to attain that life by robbing the dead on the battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars of their teeth, which the privileged then have implanted. But everything changes when he finds a dead soldier whose teeth are so beautiful he decides to have them replanted into his own mouth. He sets out to find the dead soldier’s beloved. He tracks down this Margaux – named after a red wine, and not without reason as it turns out – in the heart of Amsterdam and finagles his way into her elevated circles. This culminates in a number of unforgettable seduction scenes, with Hulst always keeping the readers on the edge of their seat. In this way Vos manages to ingratiate himself with the rich and powerful. But Hulst brilliantly exposes how that essentially means keeping the company of people who live off the blood of others. Vos tries to hold his own but is found out when he sinks his teeth into a young woman – with fatal consequences. He is forced to realize that no matter how resourceful he is, he will never be part of the elite. Meritocracy turns out to be a myth – not just for Vos, but for everyone who has not been fortunate enough to be born into privilege. In the final part of the novel, set in the former Dutch colony of Suriname, we see how skillfully Hulst weaves this personal story into the history of colonialism and capitalism. With real mastery, he takes readers on a journey, until they reach a point where they no longer know whether to feel despondent or furious. One thing, is certain, this novel stays with you long after reading.

This ambitious novel is a real tour de force.

At one point, Tooth Hunter poses the question: “Will we keep producing new books in perpetuity, just like a pharmacist mixes new potions by pouring some from one vial to the other?” Hopefully, Auke Hulst’s answer will continue to be a wholehearted “yes,” even after this highly ambitious book.

A breathtaking literary adventure.

It’s these kinds of smart, viscerally moving descriptions that give Hulst’s body of work an intense edge and demonstrate what a precise, attentive writer he is.

A brilliant novel with a gothic touch about a man hellbent on transcending his roots

Susanne Rudloff

Tandenjager

Not many writers can combine social criticism, literary imagination and a propulsive story as skillfully as storyteller extraordinaire Auke Hulst. Tooth Hunter starts off as the painfully relatable story of a brilliant conman who steals the teeth of the dead, but ends up delivering an astute critique of capitalism, a system in which the powerful bleed the masses dry and transcending one’s origins proves time and again to be no more than a pipe dream.

Tooth Hunter

Jori Stam

Ema’s childhood was marred by the sudden disappearance of her father Sieger, who worked as a journalist for a national newspaper. When new information turns up about his disappearance, Ema’s professional world transforms into a hall of mirrors. What seems real proves to be deceptive. As she finds out more, she begins to feel increasingly ambivalent about Profil and the truth turns out to be a slippery notion.    Is there even such a thing as objective reality when everyone can create their own version of what is real? And if the truth is protected, who will guard the guards themselves? The Disappearance of Sieger Somerman is a rollercoaster of a novel exploring the power of perception, trauma and our crumbling relationship with the truth.   Jori Stam  alternates with great ease between past, present and future. His energetic prose brings the protagonists, and a wide array of settings, vividly to life.

The Disappearance of Sieger Somerman is an accomplished novel about the dangers of AI.

Stam is reminiscent of the great Dutch author W.F. Hermans – his prose is precise and detailed, the ultimate meaning of the story remains somewhat enigmatic; his characters seem to be animated by something bigger than their individual psychologies – they are victims in a drama about fate and destiny.

Stam is a master of suggestion. He excels at the two key components of a successful thriller: cliffhangers and  postponed gratification. He manages to evoke an almost constant sense of dread and unease.

In this riveting novel, truth turns out to be a slippery notion

Hayo Deinum

De verdwijning van Sieger Somerman

Ema Somerman is a tech genius. She’s the CEO of a company she started with two friends. Based in Norway, Profil develops software that can be used to identify deepfakes. In a world full of digital manipulation, she has made a career for herself by drawing the line between truth and fiction.

The Disappearance of Sieger Somerman

Nadia de Vries

Is it possible to leave your origins behind and find somewhere you feel at home? De Vries’ sharp observations are rendered in precise prose. Her style is at once archaic and associative, elegant and cynical. Every word counts, every sentence reveals a potent detail. And yet there is also room for humour and hope in this bitingly satirical coming-of-age novel. Hope, because even though Shellfish returns to their hometown at the end, they have learned an important lesson: Your spirit and freedom are yours alone – how you handle what fate throws at you is up to you.      ‘I ran away – I ran fast. I turned into a street I didn’t know. I didn’t look back. It was a gorgeous day. The taxis on the ring road were singing their jagged aria of pulling up and peeling out, the wires above the trams were crackling like the death penalty. Not mine – I was alive!’

The strength is in De Vries’ gleaming prose. Witty, at times savage, gripping.

Surrender On Demand is the deeply moving story of an outcast trying to belong. This novel sheds light on a polarized society where good and evil are diametrically opposed, but the meaning of those terms is increasingly unclear.

In a novel that reads like a fairytale, Nadia de Vries offers a searing, seemingly effortless critique of our times.

Biting social critique wrapped up in a playful, lyrical style

Stella Rieck

Overgave op commando

Shellfish, the novel’s narrator and protagonist, grows up in a working-class single-parent family in a run-down seaside town where you either end up working on an assembly line or getting a job at the local distribution center. When Shellfish is ostracised by their friend group, they decide to head for the big city. With no money, housing or friends to fall back on, they find themselves at the mercy of a sexually abusive landlord, a star reporter who hires them to do odd jobs, and a flatshare with a group of social justice warriors.

Surrender On Demand

Autumn Selection 2025

Hanna Bervoets

The protagonist is Ellie, an isolated, unemployed young woman who tells her story in the form of an apologia. After burning out in her job, she starts successfully investing in the stock market using an app called Matador. She buys shares in an ailing Australian wine company called Royal Estate because the word on the internet is they’re about to be worth a lot of money. Ellie’s goal is to buy 350 grams of gold to bury underneath her house. She’s also preparing for possible catastrophe by stockpiling gas masks and other survival gear.     When her high-school best friend Freya reaches out to ask for help, Ellie introduces her to the world of investing. Ellie feels like she owes it to Freya, who was her savior during their teenage years. Freya then shares this financial knowhow with a group of friends. As stock prices go up and the women get richer, they find themselves coming down with all kinds of ailments. Ellie suffers from panic attacks. She is forced to cash in her investments before the stock collapses. Freya’s friends think Ellie set them up and decide to take revenge – with fatal consequences.      Making Money brilliantly exposes how neoliberalism has transformed our lives and relationships. What starts as Ellie’s attempt to get her own financial situation under control leaves her feverishly grappling with questions of integrity and friendship. This riveting novel deftly weaves together topics like fintech, power dynamics in relationships, and the impact of viral trends. Making Money raises questions that will stick with you long after you put the book down.

Making Money is vintage Hanna Bervoets: chewy, in touch with the zeitgeist, and with a dark edge.

Bervoets  surpasses in this novel in which humankind’s most unpleasant and most vulnerable features are inextricably linked. A propulsive pageturner.

An enthralling novel about money, retribution and sisterhood

Antonia Kasoulidou

Geld verdienen

Hanna Bervoets excels at provocative novels that tackle current issues. She has previously delved into the world of online content moderators, technology and alienation. This time around, she turns her attention to the dark side of modern financial culture. Two friends get caught up in the world of influencers and social media – a venture that strains their finances and ultimately their moral compass.

Making Money

Sarah Arnolds

‘Fire’ is about a teenage girl who wants nothing more than to escape the dreary setting in which she is growing up. She and her friends play a game called ‘fire’: if your house was on fire, what three things would you rescue? In the tense climax, the girl finds herself in this very situation: forced to make three choices. In ‘Your girlfriend buys fish at the market’, a man tries to hide from the outside world that he’s being physically abused by his girlfriend. There’s something wrong in this relationship, but what? Something that’s unsaid can in fact be all-consuming. Concealing the unequal dynamics in the relationship means they are living a lie.  The stories in The Sheer Nerve vary in length  and are marked by a high degree of absurdism: sometimes an element from one story reappears in another. Each story is original, sparkling, sharp funny and packed with interesting observations and familiar situations.

The Sheer Nerve by Sarah Arnolds causes separation anxiety: you don’t want to let go of the characters.

An impressive book, The Sheer Nerve leaves you wanting more.

Original, sparkling, sharp and funny

Het gore lef

Lying is so easy. Anyone can do it. You lie to your friends, your masseur, your parents, your children, your partner and even yourself. It’s difficult to stop. 

A lot of lying goes on in the seven stories in The Sheer Nerve. Because a lie is a great way to escape reality, which is often too painful or too boring. But a barefaced lie is too simple – these stories are about something more subtle, there’s more going on. They’re also about the image people have of themselves, in combination with what others make of them. The result: a creative approach to the truth

The Sheer Nerve

Andreas Burnier

After leaving home she hangs around in a men’s café in Amsterdam, dressed like a proper gentleman, in a brown suit, complete with scarf and pipe. She tries to step outside existing roles, to grab life with both hands, to taste freedom in a way she’s never done before. To live, not as a woman, but as a human being. She wants, as she puts it herself, ‘to have life, the whole damn thing, drip down my chin like a juicy fruit’. Simone’s life is tumultuous. In quick tempo – and in a refreshingly clear, humorous style – we read about her wanderings through Amsterdam, Paris and Germany, her student life, poverty, passionate love affairs, psychiatric institutions, artists’ colonies, the army and the mines. Autobiographical elements from Burnier’s own life alternate with fiction. Above all, A Satisfied Smile examines the essence of biography writing.  When the book appeared in 1965, it was praised both for its subject matter and its innovative style, featuring a blend of essayistic reflections, poems and first- and third-person narration. Sixty years after its publication, A Satisfied Smile has lost nothing of its relevance and sharpness – the book is nowadays seen as a milestone in Dutch-language feminist and queer literature.

A Satisfied Smile is still very much alive. Despair and recklessness, melancholy and provocation, seriousness and irony constantly alternate, in a completely original style.

This is a brilliant book.

A queer coming-of-age novel in post-war Amsterdam

Een tevreden lach

In the classic A Satisfied Smile, Andreas Burnier (1931-2002) tells the story of Simone Baling, who, just like Burnier herself, survived the Second World War as a Jewish girl. We follow her first years of adulthood, in which she leads a roaming existence and wrestles with her gender and sexuality.

A Satisfied Smile

Annemieke Dannenberg

Profound and universal issues are explored in this noteworthy poetic coming-of-age debut. The mother-daughter relationship and breaking with the faith one’s been raised in. Judith, who’s preparing for her school-leaving exams, has grown up in a strict religious environment. She lives with her single mother in a flat owned by the church, and the two often ask themselves the question ‘What would Jesus do?’. In their world it’s customary to follow God’s plan, which often channels women into teacher training – but Judith wants to study at the conservatory. A spark is lit in Judith when she ventures  to the local snack bar on a Sunday. There she meets Dorian, a girl with dyed hair and a leather jacket: she is the very opposite of Judith. Judith wrestles with herself in the run-up to the audition at the conservatory: is this what God wants of her? But the question what she herself wants is becoming increasingly important. In the end, Judith is not accepted at the conservatory, yet her resolve to break free grows. The final chord of this sensitive book is both strong and moving. Judith plays a psalm on her cello and decides it’s her last. She takes Dorian’s hand in hers and together they leave the church.

With her debut novel Small Sacred Things, Annemieke Dannenberg has added a new voice to the canon of young authors reckoning with their Protestant upbringing: violence between women and a stifling mother-daughter relationship.

Who determines your path in life? God, your mother or you?

Kleine heilige dingen

Small Sacred Things is Annemieke Dannenberg’s first novel. Judith, the main character, is in her final year at school and has to make choices that contradict everything she’s grown up with. Should she do teacher training locally, as is expected of her, or go to the conservatory in Amsterdam, to follow her true vocation?

Small Sacred Things

Forugh Karimi

But then she receives news of a girl who was like a sister to her back in Kabul, and the foundations of the life she’s carefully constructed crumble away. Widá can only see one way out: she has to fulfil an old promise and thus set the past right. Together with Margot, a journalist, she travels to Athens. Will she succeed in finishing that one story and forever laying it to rest?‘There was one story from back then that she’d let go of halfway through. And that trailing end had finally caught up with her. You can’t bury an unfinished story – as a psychiatrist she should have known that.&#039;The Afghan diaspora is compared to a bead necklace that has snapped: ‘The beads bounce all over the place and roll until, haphazardly, they land in some tiny crack and nestle there. Some beads keep on rolling, they never find a place to rest. We’re like that, beads scattered across the whole world, hoping that one day we’ll be strung together again.’In My Eyes I Carry Clouds jumps back and forth between present and past, alternating with diary fragments and letters, told from Widá’s perspective. The power of the storytelling, together with the deeply human narrative, forges a connection that goes beyond a mere understanding of the history of Afghanistan, war and migration.

Forugh Karimi touches the reader deeply with her new novel In My Eyes I Carry Clouds, about the lasting impact of trauma and human resilience.

Literature is a good way to bring Afghan history and the stories of refugees to life. Fiction goes beyond the bare facts, adding emotion, tension and a human perspective.

A journey into the past, to seek closure and move on with life

Clara Rosell

In mijn ogen draag ik wolken

At some point in her life, Widá decided she would no longer allow herself to feel anything, she forced herself to have no emotions. It was a useful survival strategy when she had to flee Kabul as a fifteen-year-old and ended up in the Netherlands. She learnt Dutch, studied medicine and took up a career as a psychiatrist.

In My Eyes I Carry Clouds

Martin Michael Driessen

Meet Georg, Klara and Lore. Their lives are very different: Georg is an ordinary, reluctant, soldier who falls in love with Lore when the German youth are helping bring in the harvest. Klara ends up working for the Lebensborn organisation and Lore becomes her chauffeur. Their three stories meander like snakes through the twentieth century, each with its own timeline, sometimes intertwined, sometimes separate. All three experience the Third Reich, with different degrees of engagement, passion and understanding. All three are moved by the Fates. With and through them we experience the passion of first love, and the misguided idealism of a youth growing up in a totalitarian regime. Tossed back and forth between innocence and the will to survive, betrayal and loyalty, they survive the horrors of the Second World War. Driessen is a fabulous  writer and tells a timeless, fast-paced and unsentimental story.

Stylistically this novel is recognisable as a true Driessen; a style often described as artistic, earthy, andante, sentences that force you to slow down your reading pace. A masterful narrator. Driessen confronts his characters with large dilemmas, as in a Greek tragedy.

An astute character sketch of three individuals and their love lives in Nazi Germany

Laura Susijn

Liefde in het Derde Rijk

A completely original story, told from the inside, capturing the feelings, situations, decisions and dramas of everyday life during World War II.

Love in the Third Reich

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Barbara den Ouden

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