Fiction
Latest Fiction
Homework
Clara Feij is a writer working for an intellectual magazine. She jokingly calls herself Mrs Dalloway, lives with her husband in a nice house in a gentrified neighbourhood and leaves the housework to a parade of domestic staff, all refugees from their own countries. When Rose comes to her home to work, everything changes.
Sugar Animal
In 'Sugar Animal', Anjet Daanje draws a shockingly human portrait of a serial killer. Rutger Jaspers lives in a rowhouse. He is the sales manager at a sugar factory, he loves his wife, the music of the popular Dutch singer Marco Borsato and having a tidy home. He seems perfectly ordinary.
The Invisibles
For young Dani, life in a remote Ukrainian village during the Soviet era is boring and spartan. But then a new boy joins his class at school: Pavel. He is charismatic and incredibly well-read, a staunch believer in communism with a keen sense of justice.
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.
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.
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.
I’ll Come Back to This Later
Few things are as tempting as musing on what might have happened if you’d taken a different turn at some point in your life. Rob van Essen’s new book, 'I’ll Come Back to This Later', is a gripping, hilarious exploration of what might happen if we were able to fix our past mistakes. It’s a lightfooted philosophical novel – a Dutch counterpart to Paul Auster’s '4 3 2 1'.
Dance Dance Revolution
In four magical realist storylines about the war between the fictional countries of Besulia and Tenebria, Lisa Weeda draws parallels with the Russo-Ukrainian war, which has been dragging on for almost a decade. Cynicism and indifference to what’s happening in war zones – that sums up the attitude of many people in the West. The characters in 'Dance Dance Revolution' don’t have this luxury.
Due to a Tender Skin
Few things are more affecting than a lonely twelve-year-old catching a girl’s eye and falling in love at first sight. Anton Koolhaas situates this story full of clumsiness and yearning for the future in a setting shaped by the past. The result is a confrontation the reader will never forget.
A Way Out
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.
