De Bezige Bij Catalogue: London Book Fair 2018 by De Bezige Bij

De Bezige Bij The Busy Bee Foreign Rights Guide London Book Fair 2018 You’ll find us at the irc, tables q & r

DE BEZIGE BIJ, THOMAS RAP & CARGO

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FOREIGN RIGHTS GUIDE LONDON BOOK FAIR 2018

Peter Buwalda Onno Blom

PREVIEW Otmar’s Sons ..........................................................................2 Rembrandt: The Leiden Years ...............................................6

Oscar van den Boogaard Peter Verhelst Johan Faber Daan Heerma van Voss Bert Natter

NEW LITERARY FICTION Child Soldier ........................................................................10 Before Forgetting .................................................................12 The Solitary Pilot .................................................................14 Call It Love...........................................................................16 They Will Think We Are Angels .........................................18

Hugo Claus Remco Campert

MODERN CLASSICS The Rumours ........................................................................20 Life Is Grrrreat .....................................................................22

Mathijs Deen Daan Borrel Jan Cremer Jolande Withuis Ingrid Hoogendijk Raoul de Jong

LITERARY NON-FICTION Down Old Roads ..................................................................24 Sometimes Love Is This .......................................................26 Sirens ....................................................................................28 Mystery Father: Child in the Cold War................................30 In Any Case, We’re Still Doing Fine ...................................32 Diary of an Adolescent: Notes of a Peerless Prodigy ..........34

Kasper van Beek Corine Hartman

COMMERCIAL FICTION Recollection ..........................................................................36 The Evil Inside Us ................................................................38

Stefan Hertmans Stefan Hertmans Margriet de Moor Koen Peeters Arjen van Veelen Tommy Wieringa

SUCCESSFUL TITLES FICTION Antigone in Molenbeek ........................................................40 The Convert ..........................................................................41 Sleepless Night ....................................................................42 The People Healer ................................................................43 Notes On the Relocation of Obelisks ..................................44 The Blessed Rita...................................................................45

Ignaas Devisch Arnold van de Laar David Van Reybrouck

SUCCESFUL TITLES NON-FICTION Excess of Empathy ...............................................................46 Under the Knife: A History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations 47 Against Elections..................................................................48

DE BEZIGE BIJ

Press on Bonita Avenue:

toe-curling as early Roth, as roomy as Franzen and as caustic as Houellebecq.' SUNDAY 'A new writer as TELEGRAPH

literary sensation…[A] crazy-paving, jigsaw puzzle…Addictive…A considerable achievement ‘A

…Bonita

Avenue is an entertaining end in itself, and

evidence that Buwalda

is just getting started.’

THE INDEPENDENT

made his debut with the bestseller Bonita Avenue, which was nominated for twelve literary prizes and won five of them. He has also published three collections of his columns for de Volkskrant. Spread across three pageturning novels, his new saga explores the pitfalls of family ties, sexuality, ambition and what it means to lack them all. The first part will appear on 25 September 2018 under the title Otmar’s Sons. Yes-man will follow on 25 September 2020, and the sequence will finish with Hysteria siberiana on 25 September 2022. Get ready for a literary sensation. PETER BUWALDA

PREVIEW

Peter Buwalda

Otmar’s Sons 001

Eight years after the international success of his novel Bonita Avenue, which sold 350.000 copies in the Netherlands alone, Peter Buwalda is back with a breath-taking saga Ludwig Smit, a young Shell employee, inches his way closer towards his father Johan Tromp, the great mystery of his life for 32 years. Master and servant are thrown together on Sakhalin Island, where Johan Tromp’s electrifying career in the oil industry suddenly teeters when a journalist named Isabelle Orthel arrives. She and Ludwig have a short but painful history going back to when they were students—and Tromp is also on his guard, having met her in the Niger Delta under grim circumstances. Meanwhile, the question arises as to whether it’s wise to give her access to Ludwig’s world-famous step-brother, the concert pianist Dolf Appelqvist. Bordering on madness, Appelqvist’s light appears to—finally—be fading, were it not for discovering the long-lost third movement of Beethoven’s piano sonata: opus 111. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 496 pages – 25 September 2018 3

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111 It’s not what the psychiatrists charge a pound of flesh to call a Vatersuche, not in his case; Dolf isn’t searching for anything and hasn’t lost anything either. Still, even though he is already a headstrong, surly boy of eight when the man suddenly sets foot on the worn sisal matting of their apartment on Gerestraat, within only a few months he is calling him “Papa”, bawling it like a newborn calf. The man, whose name is Otmar Smit, is the conductor of his mother’s choir at the little music school in Blerick. A short, stocky figure who smokes Belindas through an ivory holder and has such broad feet that the chestnut-brown, woven leather slip-ons he wears are almost round. “Your feet are round, sir,” Dolf blurts out the next time Otmar shows up in their hastily tidied and vacuum-cleaned living room. The man replies amiably that there is no need to call him sir, and asks if he knows that Willem van Hanegem and Luciano Pavarotti (“you know who that is, don’t you?”) have round feet too. But then he leans over and, in a flash, 4

PREVIEW

snags Dolf’s hand in his, stares at him from under his bristling eyebrows like the god of thunder and says “squeeze, come on, come on squeeze, do it – hard”. Dolf bears down as hard as he can on the dry, fleshy palm, first with one hand, then with both. Just to bait him, Otmar smiles at Dolf’s mother who is wearing her party best and, with his free hand in his pocket, asks if, when Dolf is finished squeezing, there is anything he can do to help her in the kitchen, drain a pan of potatoes or something. For the first time, fatherliness has him by the scruff of the neck, although that word itself never occurs to him. Waxing and waning months they are, maybe even years, in which Dolf’s senses are fuddled by the presence of this strange familiar man with his red trousers and his fishbone jacket with the suede patches at the elbows; Otmar’s jovial vitality, his forceful optimism, they breathe a masculinity he has never taken into account before; until then he had been, well okay, the man around their flat, a rather bleak and introverted start to a boy’s life, he realizes that with a certain resignation. Translated by Sam Garrett

DE BEZIGE BIJ

‘As the author of two big books on Rembrandt and a number of small ones, I nonetheless find myself wishing to be able to delve more deeply into various aspects of his work and life. That starts with his early life in Leiden, his family, his school, local lore, the people who encouraged him and bought his earliest paintings and etchings. Because the documentary evidence is so sparse, it takes intimate familiarity with the Leiden surroundings, a good historical imagination and a certain literary daringness to do justice to this important theme. So I was delighted to hear that Onno Blom, who is richly endowed with all three prerequisites, is taking on the job. I am looking forward eagerly to a book that will evoke Rembrandt’s beginnings in full color.’ GARY D. SCHWARTZ, AUTHOR OF REMBRANDT’S UNIVERSE ‘I know Blom to be an ambitious researcher and a gifted writer. His way with words, his experience as a biographer and his understanding of art and the city of Leiden make him the ideal candidate to write the biography of the young Rembrandt. I declare myself willing to advise him on his subject matter where appropriate, considering my long experience with Rembrandt's artistic career and oeuvre.' PRF. ERNST VAN DE WETERING, REMBRANDT RESEARCH PROJECT (b. 1969) graduated cum laude in Dutch literature and Cultural Studies. He is a writer, journalist, columnist for de Volkskrant and literary criitic for de Nieuwsshow on Radio 1. His previous books include His Book of Hours (about Harry Mulisch), The Mythological Creature Named Komrij, That’ll Do (about Jan Wolker’s last year) and, most recently, the critically acclaimed national bestseller Death’s Scar: The Jan Wolkers Biography in 2017. ONNO BLOM

PREVIEW

Onno Blom The Young Rembrandt A biography 001

For the readers of Simons Schama’s Rembrandt’s Eyes and Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo Da Vinci, acclaimed Dutch biographer Onno Blom tells the untold story of the young Rembrandt in early 17th century Leiden Rembrandt is the world's best-known mystery. There are hardly any primary historical sources relating to his childhood and youth in Leiden. We have little more than a handful of stories from his earliest biographers – and, of course, his work: paintings, drawings and etchings – which today can be found in major museums all over the world. Who was Rembrandt, really? What made him tick? What secrets lie hidden in his paintings? And what was the city of Leiden like in the turbulent years when he grew up there? In The Young Rembrandt, Onno Blom seeks out the roots of Rembrandt's talent, the spark of his genius. The book will bring the figure of Rembrandt and his times close to the reader, evoking the smell of paint in the studio and bringing to life the full-blooded spirit of the Dutch Golden Age. Written in the great narrative tradition of authors such as Simon Schama, Richard Holmes, and Geert Mak, The Young Rembrandt is a hugely entertaining read for a wide international readership – not for only scholars and experts, although we hope they'll find a few surprises, but for anyone with an interest in the life of that young, immensely talented Leiden artist at the start of the tempestuous Golden Age. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Biography – approx. 300 pages, full colour illustrations Dutch ms. available 1 April 2019 – Publication October 2019 – Exhibitions in Lakenhal in Leiden, The Netherlands on 1 November 2019, thereafter in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England – 19 page English proposal available 7

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A few scenes The play of the sun on the River Rhine – that must have been the first light to catch Rembrandt's eyes. At the house in Weddesteeg, the narrow side street where he was born, you could open the front door and hear the water splash and gurgle along the riverbanks. And from the upper window, you could see the sunlight glitter and sparkle over an endless pattern of dancing green swells. Through the stained glass pane full of air bubbles, the panorama seemed to bob and sway like a vision in a dream. The view from that window also included his father's mill, on the western city wall where the Rhine flowed into Leiden. The sight was only too familiar to the boy, as was the sound that the mill made when set in motion by the wind. When Rembrandt heard its sails whirring and whistling, the wooden cogwheels crunching and creaking and the millstones scraping together as they ground coarse malt for the brewers, it was like listening to the workings of his own mind. Strolling into Leiden from the reclaimed land around the city, or gliding in on a horse-drawn barge, you would have spied from a distance the seven mills on the city wall turning their sails. Just a year before Rembrandt's birth, the inventive nobleman Don Quixote had sprung from the fertile imagination of Miguel de Cervantes and onto the parchment of the first great European novel. It's not surprising that the Don mistook mills for giants, spectral knights who could slice off your head with one mighty sweep of the arms. The importance of mills to the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands can hardly be overestimated. God created the world, but the Dutch made the Netherlands, they say. It was the mills, pumping away the water, that reclaimed the land from the sea. And in wartime – for the threat of war was never distant in the young Republic – the Dutch cities needed their mills more than ever. Back in 1574, before the siege of Leiden, the mill – which then belonged to Rembrandt's grandfather Gerrit Roelofszoon – had stood in the countryside beyond Leiden's walls. It was disassembled in haste as the forces of the Spanish 8

PREVIEW

commander Francisco de Valdés drew near. Several mills were placed on wooden platforms and moved to the city wall, where they could grind grain and malt for Leiden's bread and beer under the protection of the civic guard. Without the mills, famine would have struck in the early days of the siege. Within Leiden's wall – where the seven mills stood, with names like 'The Ark' and 'The Pelican' – the perfect circle of the medieval keep stood high on a hilltop in the centre of town. Two great churches, the Hooglandsekerk and the Pieterskerk, floated around the keep like massive stone ships on a sea of rooftops. As you approached the city, their two silhouettes, up in the skies, seemed to slowly turn their prows. * Leiden was the place where Rembrandt first opened his eyes. As unbelievable as it may seem, it is the undeniable truth: history's most famous painter was born in a small house overlooking the Rhine – the source of his surname Van Rijn. Rembrandt was the ninth of ten children in the household of the miller Harmen Gerritszoon. A miller's son – that may sound like a humble beginning, but tax records in the Leiden city archives show that Rembrandt's father was far from being a pauper. Besides the reasonable income from the mill, both Harmen Gerritszoon and his wife, the baker's daughter Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuydbrouck, received inheritances from their families. They lived in comfort and could afford to have their children educated. Rembrandt would later portray both his father and his mother in drawings and paintings. Rembrandt attended the local Latin school and matriculated at Leiden University on 20 May 1620, as a student of letters. This was a remarkably early start, at the tender age of fourteen. The university, too, was still very young. After the city was relieved in 1574, Willem van Oranje, the Father of the Nation, had designated Leiden as the location for the first University of the Northern Netherlands. Not so much as the reward for what the city had been through, as the historian Johan Huizinga wrote, but rather as the culmination. Sample translation: David McKay 9

DE BEZIGE BIJ

magnum opus. Child Soldier has the required magnitude and class...an author at the peak of his ‘A

powers.’ ***** DE STANDAARD ‘A

literary pearl. The best of this writer thus far.’ *****

HET NIEUWSBLAD

‘A Couperus-esque family dialogues.’ **** DE LIMBURGER

history

written in tight

‘Bursting with marvellous scenes, the sentences are always worth the effort, the discoveries are striking, peculiar and infectious.’ DE GROENE AMSTERDAMMER ‘Marvellously

written. A magnificent novel with which

in the echelon of Tommy Wieringa and the great writers of his generation.’ NIEUWSWEEKEND he’s placed himself

(b. 1964) grew up in Suriname and the Netherlands. He studied law and French in Montpellier, Amsterdam and Brussels, but after working briefly as a lawyer he chose to become a writer. His work (including Julia’s Delight, Love’s Death and More Than a Lover) has been translated into numerous languages, filmed and nominated for the great literary prizes. OSCAR VAN DEN BOOGAARD

©Rineke Dijkstra

NEW LITERARY FICTION

Oscar van den Boogaard

Child Soldier 00

The unravelling of an upper-class family’s history; a modern Buddenbrooks Child Soldier is an epic about two illustrious Dutch families living on the border with Germany. Against the backdrop of wars and major social changes, they cling to the old world order. The story begins in 1888 at the family castle Metternich, with its Dutch and Prussian gates. The twins Nol and Max are there and spend their childhood with Nora, the girl from down the road. At the outbreak of the First World War, the 18-yearold brothers leave the castle through different gates, landing themselves on the opposite sides of history. The consequences of their choices will determine the fates of the generations to come. When Nora’s rebellious daughter Elsie – traumatised by her parents’ unhappy marriage and family secrets – meets a Dutch prince on a ski holiday in the 1950s, their love seems as impossible as it does necessary.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 586 pages – February 2018 – English sample translation available 11

DE BEZIGE BIJ

Excerpt: ‘You can’t find the keys under your nose. You can’t find your coat. In the car you call your wife, who doesn’t pick up. You can only scream and pound the wheel because all the cars are driving way too slow and all the lights have changed to red. You call your wife again. You try not to frighten her by shouting but you know you’ll be too late. You need to breathe slowly. In the distance you see the flashing light above the fluorescent yellow of the ambulance (back doors open/interior empty/a surge of hope).’ Press on previous work:

creator of visual prose and as such he will not easily be surpassed.’ ***** DE STANDAARD ‘Verhelst is a

‘Radical,

vulnerable, lyrical, dark.’

ALFRED SCHAFFER, POET

‘There is no writer more physical Peter Verhelst.’ VRIJ NEDERLAND

or sensual than

(b. 1962) is a poet, novelist and director. Since 2006 he has worked as a director and writer at the Ghent theatre NTGent. His work has won several major prizes, including the Golden Owl, the Jan Campert Prize, the Flemish Culture Prize, the Gouden Griffel, the Ida Gerhardt Poetry Prize, the Herman de Coninck Prize and the F. Bordewijk Prize. PETER VERHELST

NEW LITERARY FICTION

Peter Verhelst

Before Forgetting After the loss of his mother, Peter Verhelst brings us a fervent ode to the art of remembering Peter Verhelst’s mother dies unexpectedly. He witnesses his father’s grief and must also find his own way of coping. It is a process full of harshly realistic, mythical, sensual, essayistic and poetic journeys. He grimly excavates his memories, at the same time opening up new worlds. Before Forgetting is neither a book about mothers, nor a book about death, but rather a fervent ode to our floundering, tentative resistance to meaninglessness and sorrow. Verhelst struggles tooth and nail to create something vital—something that could continue to remind us, so that ultimately we can forget.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 355 pages – April 2018 – English sample translation available 13

THOMAS RAP

Excerpt: ‘Although I was by far the youngest member of Aeroclub Hamburg and in fact had only clocked up fifty flying hours, in that short time I had built up a reputation as a good, disciplined pilot. The fact that I was a quiet boy, without a grain of bravura, must have contributed to that. It didn’t occur to me to attempt stunts with my plane for a change of pace; I listened to the instructor and followed procedures obediently. I knew many new pilots who pushed the boundaries, boys who constantly took too little notice of weather forecasts. If in doubt, into the air. Then turning figures of eight over their homes or tricks of that kind. It seemed to be part of the job, but I didn’t join in. Not because I lacked the courage, but because I thought it was so childish. I dreamed big.’ (b. 1970) published a number of successful sports books with Thomas Rap, including The Marco Mystery and Alpe d’Huez: The Dutch mountain, before writing his first novel, Wende, which appeared in 2012. For his second novel, The Veteran, he was awarded the Dioraphte Literatour Prize in 2015. JOHAN FABER

NEW LITERARY FICTION

Johan Faber

The Solitary Pilot Based on the unforgettable true story of Mathias Rust from Hamburg, who at the age of eighteen flew his Cessna straight across the Iron Curtain into the heart of Moscow On 28 May 1987, as the Cold War was nearing its end, an eighteenyear-old amateur pilot from West Germany landed on the Red Square in Moscow in a Cessna light aircraft. Images of the extraordinary stunt went around the globe, and the selfproclaimed ‘messenger of peace’ became famous overnight. .

Many years later, the long-forgotten Kremlin flyer was tracked down by a Dutch researcher. In Hamburg, a city stricken by terrorist attacks, the two men meet and confront not just the past but each other. Were the young West-German’s motives so pure? And what does he have to do with the current wave of terrorism? .

The Solitary Pilot is the incredible tale of a man who did the unthinkable. Part adventure story, part psychological duel, part interior monologue and based on historical facts, this novel will keep readers in suspense to the last page. World rights: Thomas Rap – Novel – 288 pages – April 2018 – English sample translation available 15

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Press on previous work: ‘In The Last War Heerma van Voss once again reveals himself to be an excellent observer who with his consummate

feeling for

language and rhythm manages to describe situations so accurately that as a reader you feel more like a participant than a witness.’ GAZET VAN ANTWERPEN ‘A Belated Journey is a gripping, painful and subtle work. Abel Loe and Daan come to life on the page and are subtly described with great compassion.’ AMOS OZ, AUTHOR ‘The Last War allows the reader to delve into complex human relationships; in its style we might discover traces

of writers

like Nabokov, Borges or Bob Dylan, brushstrokes of reality in the world of fiction.’ THE OBJECTIVE ‘At a young age he has written an oeuvre for which some superannuated writers would commit character assassination.’ DE MORGEN

(b. 1986) is a novelist and a columnist for De Morgen. For his journalistic work he was awarded De Tegel, and his novels have been nominated for several literary prizes. His journalism has been published in newspapers including NRC Handelsblad, de Volkskrant and Haaretz. His most recent novel, The Last War (2016), was translated into German, Swedish, Spanish and Chinese. DAAN HEERMA VAN VOSS

NEW LITERARY FICTION

Daan Heerma van Voss

Call It Love When do you know for certain that you love someone? Do I still believe in love? Thirtyfour-year-old Tomas Wolf has not dared to ask himself that question for a long time. But now that his grandmother is considering ending her life and his best friend is seriously ill, he decides to believe. He opens himself up to love once more. And how. He falls for the girl A., who, influenced by what Tomas calls today’s ‘narcissistic era’, has a completely different view of love. Call It Love is a chronicle of our times as pitiless as it is enchanting: a mirror and hammer in one.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 301 pages – May 2018 English sample available 17

THOMAS RAP ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

‘This novel is beautiful. From the

very start I was drawn into a world that is wide and begins with a resounding bang then gradually becomes narrower, confined and silent, until I, just like Alfred, became locked up in his head.’ TROUW ‘Natter appropriately keeps sentimentality and big words at bay. At the same time he

creates a feeling of growing

melancholy, which washed over me in the final

pages like a wave.’ DE GROENE AMSTERDAMMER ‘A delightful

page-turner.’ VPRO GIDS

‘Intriguing and surreal.’ HP-DE TIJD (b. 1968) made his debut in 2008 with Desire Has Touched Us, which won him the Selexyz Debut Prize and the Lucy B. & C.W. van der Hoogt Prize. In 2012 he published What’s the Story with Love?, about which Vrij Nederland wrote: ‘A deft, successful example of remarkable narrative talent.’ His novel Remington, published in 2015, was nominated for the ECI Literature Prize, while Goldberg was shortlisted for the ECI Literature Prize in 2016. BERT NATTER

NEW LITERARY FICTION ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Bert Natter

They Will Think We Are Angels What do you do when a single event utterly shatters your view of your own past and future? The last beautiful day of the year. At a terrace on a square in the middle of the city a man and woman have just met. An armoured car drives at high speed into the crowd of shoppers and crashes into a storefront a little further on. An enormous explosion follows. When a police bus stops in the middle of the square, the coast looks clear, but then all hell breaks loose. Under a table, the man and woman wait in each other’s arms for death, which doesn’t come. In this astonishing and timely novel, Bert Natter sketches an image of our time that is as unsettling as it is piercing.

World rights: Thomas Rap – Novel – 304 pages – March 2018 19

DE BEZIGE BIJ

‘Impressive,

incisive

and

wise.’

NRC HANDELSBLAD

‘The

text radiates a delight in writing.’ DE MORGEN

‘With

a virtuoso’s touch, Claus the novelist skirts the

abyss of topical events...

Such narrative élan...

wonderful, often lyrical style.’ HET PAROOL .

‘As always, Claus shows the

his language.

formidable range of

Even when writing prose,

he never

neglects the fact that he is a poet.’ TROUW HUGO CLAUS (1929-2008) ranks as the most

important Flemish writer since the Second World War. His supremely realistic work broke with a traditional way of writing. Characteristic of this early work is a surprising and powerful style combined with an effervescent use of language. Later his prose became more sober in tone but the poetic force always remained, as did his ability to cause a sensation. His wide-ranging oeuvre consists of novels, stories, poems, plays and film scripts. Claus has received more than fifty prizes, including seven Belgian or Flemish National Awards, several Dutch awards, and the Belgian-Dutch Literature Prize (1986), the most important literary prize for a writer working in the Dutch language. His international prizes include the Prix Lugné-Poë (1955), the Ford Foundation Grant (1959), the Prix International Pier Paolo Pasolini (1997), the Aristeion Literature Prize (1998), the Premio Nonino (2000) and the Preis für Europäische Poesie (2001). 20

MODERN CLASSICS

Hugo Claus

The Rumours ‘Claus is truly a genius, as a painter, as a poet, as a novelist and as a playwright. The Rumours is the darkest jewel among all his novels.’ DIE ZEIT René Catrijsse, deserter in a colonial war, returns to his Flemish village in 1967. His arrival unleashes a series of puzzling incidents. Twenty years later René’s brother, Noël, tells a mysterious former police commissioner his gruesome fairy-tale of guilt and love. The Rumours was crowned with both the European Aristeion Prize and the Libris Literature Prize in 1997, and is considered a highpoint in the impressive oeuvre of this Flemish language-virtuoso. Along with a few selected titles, The Rumours was re-published earlier this year in honour of their author, who passed away ten years ago.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Previously translated into: French, German, Italian, Hungarian, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Czech, Bulgarian, Slovenian, Greek, Estonian – Novel – 336 pages – 1996 21

DE BEZIGE BIJ

‘An outstanding and

supremely agreeable book, that

you read with uninterrupted DUBOIS, AUTHOR

enjoyment.’ PIERRE H.

‘Subtly

written and constructed, faultless in its atmosphere and descriptions, right on the mark in its sometimes overwhelming humour.’ HET PAROOL ‘Campert writes with a nimble irony that is rarely matched in the Netherlands.’ TROUW ‘Subtle...magnificent sentences.’ NRC HANDELSBLAD ‘So seemingly heedless,

striking and enthralling— that is Campert’s unique art.’ VRIJ NEDERLAND (b. 1929) is a poet, novelist and former columnist. For his poetry he has won numerous awards including the Jan Campert Prize, the P.C. Hooft Prize and the Gouden Ganzenveer. In 2015 he was honoured with the prestigious Dutch Literature Prize. REMCO CAMPERT

MODERN CLASSICS

Remco Campert

Life is Grrreat ‘“I’m not bored. I’m unhappy.” “Because you believe in happiness. Everyone who believes in happiness is unhappy.”’ Campert’s debut novel, Life is Grrreat, was originally published in 1961. Its theme, the failure, ultimately, of love’s ideal, is expressed in an airy manner, its melancholy filtering through irony and word-play. Two friends, Mees and Boeli, come upon a sixteen-year-old girl called Panda. Marijuana (‘Marryyou-Anna’) is smoked, free love is in its heyday and there is much aimless and carefree sauntering through the park. No one has managed so well as Remco Campert to capture in words the lighthearted and joyful. The novel was an instant success and developed into a classic. This year the film version was released by Sigma Films, with Frans Weisz directing.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 160 pages – 1961 23

THOMAS RAP

‘Mathijs Deen celebrates the roads as a symbol for both the nomadic European and European unity. [...] His

impressive historical knowledge allows him to move effortlessly through the ages.’ **** NRC HANDELSBLAD

extraordinary empathic ability,

‘An

style, conscientious research and a

a sound

flair for telling

details. Every story is a sketch of a life, of a society, of a zeitgeist.’ **** DE MORGEN ‘What do you get when you combine history and travel stories with get

an intoxicatingly excellent writing? Down Old Roads...A masterly work.’ 9/10

You HET

BELANG VAN LIMBURG

‘A

wonderful book, in its breadth and vitality.’

REVISOR (b. 1962) is a writer and radio producer. He makes documentaries for VPRO Radio. His short story collection Brutus is Hungry was nominated for the AKO Literature Prize. In 2013 he published The Wadden Islands to universal acclaim. His novel Among the People was reissued in 2016, a German translation will be published in 2018 by Mare Verlag and the film rights have been sold. MATHIJS DEEN

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

Mathijs Deen

Down Old Roads A journey through the history of Europe People have roamed throughout Europe for a million years. From the mysterious homo antecessor that left its footprints on the coast of England, to the traveller on today’s motorways. Under every footstep lies an older one, under every paved road a pack trail or wagon rut, under every footpath the prints of a hunter or prey. And yet, the long through roads of Europe do not hold a special place in the imaginations and identities of its residents. Why does the European have such an ambivalent relationship with the long roads of her continent? In search of the answer to that question, Mathijs Deen follows in the footsteps of the refugees, bandits, pilgrims, fortune seekers and conquerors who found their way along the coasts, rivers and roads of Europe, and tells their stories. From prehistoric times and the Roman Era, through the Middle Ages to the Europe of today. From the Strait of Gibraltar to Stockholm, from Rome to Boekelo. Down Old Roads is an adventurous journey through Europe and a fascinating trip through time. World rights: Thomas Rap – History – 416 pages – February 2018 – English sample translation available – Selected by The Dutch Foundation for Literature as one of the ‘10 Non-fiction Books from Holland’ 2018 25

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Excerpt: It felt like a real triumph, during those first few days, I remember. As if I had been able to segregate physical and mental conjunction. As if I had gained another life experience, had been able to fly home a more complete human being. Fly home to you. That you would get something from this as well, indirectly. I was under the honest impression that I had the right to find out what else, besides your lover, I was as a sexual, longing individual. A lover who had just moved in with her one and only, and to whom it was becoming oppressively clear which scenario was being charted in the process. Even though I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe I saw this so clearly at the time. All I felt was the right to greater experience, something women of the world can allow themselves on holiday once or twice, only to pick up their quiet lives once back home again. In myself I saw someone who had taken the liberty to have another go at seducing someone. Testing whether I still had the knack, something like that. With hindsight, incredibly self-centred. DAAN BORREL (b.

1990) studied literature at the University of Amsterdam and then became a freelance journalist. She writes about culture and sexuality for dailies including NRC Handelsblad, De Correspondent and Het Parool. In 2017, along with family doctor and sexologist Peter Leusink, she compiled the collection This Is Not About Sex. Sometimes Love is This is her debut.

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

Daan Borrel

Sometimes Love is This A personal account of the body and desire After kissing a man who is not her partner, Daan Borrel sits in a room in Berlin and writes a letter to her boyfriend. The letter ends up becoming an introspective meditation on desire, intimacy and sexuality. Should we be allowed to explore and indulge every desire? And how do we combine that with our need for intimacy? Women are free to pursue their own desires nowadays, but what if they have never learnt to deal with such freedom? Or are men just as bad in that respect? And what actually creates desires, the mind or the body? To what extent are they shaped by stories? In Sometimes Love is This Daan Borrel goes in search of answers. She focuses on enlightened thinkers, literature, eastern philosophy, female pop singers and films, and indeed on her own body and the women who raised it. The book offers an intimate glimpse inside the head and abdomen of a person trying to understand every nuance of her own sexuality. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Psychology, sexuality – 192 pages – April 2018 English sample translation available 27

DE BEZIGE BIJ

‘Jan Cremer takes stock, more honestly than ever before.

Beautiful memories. A fragile document.’

****

DE VOLKSKRANT

‘The most personal book he has ever written. An

ode to a

great love.’ NRC HANDELSBLAD ‘Good

book, wonderful letters. Desire, longing,

regret.’ HET PAROOL ‘The letters pull no punches.

Authentic,

unvarnished,

with no other goal – like Odysseus long ago – than to find her home in love and in her lover.’ **** DE LIMBURGER (b. 1940), artist and writer, achieved international fame in 1964 with his first novel, I, Jan Cremer. At the author’s request, ‘a sure-fire bestseller’ was printed on the cover, right from the very first edition. Cremer’s controversial comments in I, Jan Cremer were viewed by some as a threat to national security, an appalling example to young people and more. At the same time, he was praised by such prominent colleagues as Willem Frederik Hermans. The sequel was published in 1966 and also became a smash hit. His subsequent work has included travelogues, letters and an autobiographical account. JAN CREMER

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

Jan Cremer

Sirens .

‘I should never have let you go, you were an ice floe drifting out and I didn’t hold you back. I always thought we’d someday be together, that I’d drop anchor with you. You were my soul and I’ve always hidden that. That you were carved into my heart, no one could know. It’s far too late to miss you this much.’ In the dark winter days of 1959, an unknown West-Frisian nurse and a painter-rebel meet in late-night Amsterdam. It’s love at first sight, a destiny for the two of them, there and then. Five years later both are famous, she as Loesje Hamel, top model for Pierre Cardin and later the star of the theatre group Shaffy Chantant, he as the author of a perpetual bestseller. What begins as forbidden love becomes a hectic and restless odyssey that for some ten years keeps pushing them apart, to different sides of the ocean. Yet they continue to seek each other out. It’s not for another halfcentury that Jan has the courage to read her letters and to confront himself. That experience inspired him to write Sirens, an account of their tragic love. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Memoir – 240 pages – November 2017 29

DE BEZIGE BIJ

‘An extremely impressive book [...] It is truly how Withuis keeps the

admirable

personal and historical in

perfect balance.’ ***** ELSEVIER ‘Unusually for the genre, this is not a lament but, as befits the communists and apparently also former communists like the

robust book, and above all loving, exploratory and investigative. Because one thing is author, a

clear from the start: the author doesn’t want to cast her father off but to find him.’ **** NRC HANDELSBLAD ‘Jolande Withuis analyses with surgical precision the life of her communist father. The pen as a scalpel: painful and redemptive. A masterful

dissection of a sect.

Moving.’ ADRIAAN VAN DIS, AUTHOR JOLANDA WITHUIS (b. 1949) worked for the

NIOD as a researcher until 2014. She writes for NRC Handelsblad, Trouw and de Volkskrant. De Bezige Bij published Recognition (2002), After The Camp (2005), The Woman as Human (2007) and in 2008 her biography Be Masculine, You Are Strong about resistance man Pim Boellaard, and for which she was awarded the Great History Prize 2009 and the Eric Hazelhoff Prize 2010. Her biography of the Dutch queen Juliana, Juliana: Queen in a Man’s World, was published in 2016 to critical acclaim, and quickly became a bestseller. The film rights have been sold. 30

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

Jolande Withuis

Mystery Father ......

‘I was five years old and knew: we are the enemy.’ The famous chess-journalist Berry Withuis (1920-2009) was raised in a Calvinist family. Having lost his faith in God when he was 12 years old, he went on to become a communist and editor of the newspaper De Waarheid (The Truth). Though his daughter grew up with her father’s political convictions, she would later become one of communism’s renowned critics. For Withuis, breaking with her roots opened the path to writing and science, but also led to a distance between her and her father. After his death she couldn’t accept that the man she revered as a child hardly let himself be known as a person. With the help of, among other things, his National Security dossier, she reconstructs his life story in Mystery Father. Withuis’ precise and moving dissection of her relationship with her father mirrors our recent world history and offers the reader a glimpse of the Cold War from within.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Memoir – 224 pages – February 2018 31

THOMAS RAP

Excerpt from the letters: ‘Schimmelchen was the first horse we had to leave behind. I found it really hard to have to say goodbye to the sweet creature. Other carthorses had trampled one of her hooves and she could no longer walk. For the next seven days we were driven across the fields like cattle. The main highways were blocked and the only through road was closed at Elbing. We were hemmed in. It was a chaos beyond description.’ ‘Schimmelchen war die erste, die wir stehen lassen mussten von unseren Pferden. Es fiel mir schwer, mich von dem lieben Tier zu trennen. Andere Gäule hatten ihr den Fuß kaputtgeschlagen, so dass sie nicht mehr laufen konnte. Dann kamen sieben Tage, an denen wir wie das Vieh auf den Äckern herumgejagt wurden. Die Hauptstraßen waren gesperrt, der einzige Durchgang bei Elbing abgeschlossen. So saßen wir im Kessel. Ein Chaos wie man es nicht schildern kann.

INGRID HOOGENDIJK is the granddaughter of Michiel Hoogendijk. After a

varied business career she spent more than ten years researching her family’s past.

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

Ingrid Hoogendijk

In Any Case, We’re Still Doing Fine A Dutch family in East Prussia, 1920-1946 In 1922 the Rotterdam cloth merchant Michiel Hoogendijk came into possession of the country estate of Schakenhof in East Prussia. There he, his wife and seven children experienced the rise of National Socialism, the war, the coming of the Russians and the collapse of the Third Reich. Decades later, his grand-daughter, Ingrid Hoogendijk, acquired a large collection of letters, written by members of the family to each other in those turbulent times. This book tells the gripping story of a family torn apart by war, and the story of East Prussia, a country that has vanished from our collective memory.

World rights: Thomas Rap – Historical non-fiction – 368 pages – March 2018 German synopsis & sample letter available 33

DE BEZIGE BIJ

‘I am amazed at his youthful exuberance. What a book! (Fantastic hair too by the way)’ DAVID SEDARIS, AUTHOR ‘Funny and recognisable.’ COSMOPOLITAN Monday 4 March Dear Diary, I’m in some kind of midlife crisis. I’m no longer sure whether I want to be a film star, I’m really in two minds at the moment. Perhaps it’s no fun at all if you can never be yourself. Perhaps that entire world is shit! It came as a shock when I began to have doubts. I’ve wanted to be a film star all my life, after all. So I’m thinking very hard about what I’m going to do instead. According to mum I can do whatever I like. But what do I want? I quite like the idea of being a journalist or an archaeologist. But on the other hand, then I’ll be swallowed up by the masses, I’ll be just like everyone else. I know that I want to lead an adventurous life, that’s for sure. I don’t want to rot away in some office. (b. 1984) has written columns for Spunk, NRC Handelsblad and Het Parool, as well as publishing five books. His first book was awarded the Dick Scherpenzeel Prize, and his most recent, The Indescribable Greatness of It All, was proclaimed Best Rotterdam Book. He is now writing a book about Suriname and its slave history. RAOUL DE JONG

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

Raoul de Jong

Diary of an Adolescent Notes of a peerless prodigy A tremendously original glimpse into the tender adolescent soul. For readers of The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole Who can reread their adolescent diaries without feeling embarrassed? Most diaries end up left in a forgotten box, tossed on the fire or put through a shredder. So Raoul de Jong sees the author of his diaries not as his younger self but as ‘a twelve-year-old monster who, with a great sense of drama, stars in his own Beverly Hills 90210 inspired soap opera’. De Jong analyses excerpts of his diary in which insurrections, burgeoning love affairs, broken hearts and existential crises come thick and fast. With hilarious results. ‘When, at the age of four, Raoul wanted to go to reception class wearing a pink bow in his hair, his mother thought that was fine. When, aged eight, Raoul fell in love with her Barbies which he had found in his grandparents’ attic, she took him along to Barbie collectors’ fairs. And when his mother was thirty-four and Raoul nine, they had got into the car and she had asked: “Where we shall we go?” Raoul was a fan of Brigitte Bardot that summer and said: ‘Paris.’ It took them two days to get there, because Raoul did the map-reading.’ World rights: De Bezige Bij – Popular non-fiction – 109 pages – March 2018 35

CARGO

Excerpt: ‘The silence descends over the forest again, and the hunter looks at his dog, which stares back inquisitively. He begins to inch towards the figure, step by watchful step, still with his rifle at the ready. When he approaches he sees two legs sticking up motionlessly. Close by, dark blue shows through the white, and with a pounding heart he starts brushing away the snow. Slowly, a jacket appears and it’s only now that the hunter realises that lying on the ground in front of him is a man in a suit. Without a winter coat, without a hat, without moon boots. Surprised, he scratches his beard, but then he sees the red stain spreading in the snow. Two stains in fact. Not only around the man’s head, but also around his shoulder blood is pooling. As the hunter desperately scans his surroundings, he thinks to himself, I only fired one shot, didn’t I?’ (b. 1985) is a movie and television producer. He is the cofounder of two production companies, at which he’s taken on a broad range of international and national projects. He lives and works in Amsterdam. Recollection is his debut. KASPER VAN BEEK

COMMERCIAL FICTION

Kasper van Beek

Recollection Some memories are best forgotten Olaf’s quiet life is turned upside down when he discovers a green envelope in the post. In it he finds a photo of himself, standing on the shore of a frozen lake, with an arm around the shoulders of another man. He has no memory of the photo, or the place where it was taken, and he has never seen the other man before. Though he can’t seem to find answers anywhere, his suspicions are roused when his family says they’re sure the whole thing is a joke and that he should just forget it. Together with Mila, a colleague who has her own reasons for helping him, Olaf begins a search for the man in the photo. It leads him from Amsterdam to Helsinki, and the nightmares that torment Olaf with increasing intensity appear to come surprisingly close to the truth. The more Olaf and Mila discover, the more desperate the attackers who pursue them become. Who sent the photo, and above all: why? World rights: Cargo – Rights sold: PRE-EMPT Goldmann Verlag (Germany) Thriller – 288 pages – April 2018 – German & English synopsis, English sample available – Selected by the Dutch Foundation for Literature as thriller for the ‘10 Fiction Books from Holland’ 37

CARGO

‘An exceptional book.’ **** AD Magazine Press on previous work: ‘Bold,

raw and hard, written in a breath-taking

tempo and with a character we seldom meet in Dutch thrillers.’ JURY REPORT, THE GOLDEN NOOSE AWARD 2013

‘A hard

thriller from the Dutch Karin Slaughter.’

ELSEVIER

‘Written in that signature Corine Hartman style: beautiful,

intelligent, evocative, without frills and distracting details.’ ***** AD MAGAZINE ‘Strong

characters, blood curdling action, an exciting plot and unexpected twists turn this psychological thriller into an ***** CRIMEZONE MAGAZINE

irresistibly riveting story.’

. CORINE HARTMAN

(b. 1964) worked as a scriptwriter for many years and has fifteen thrillers to her name. Her books are famed for their tough action sequences and fascinating characters. She has been nominated for the Gouden Strop a number of times and has won several Crimezone Awards.

COMMERCIAL FICTION

Corine Hartman

The Evil Inside Us A happy family. Were they ever actually that? Simone Steenbeeck’s greatest wish was to become a mother. A family to care for. When a pregnancy began to look unlikely, however, she and her husband Richard chose another path. They became the proud foster parents of Daniel and Nina, two children from Brazil. Shortly thereafter, Simone became pregnant after all, and her daughter Veerle completed the family. Now, almost twenty years later, the family Steenbeeck lives in an idyllic village. Simone runs a patisserie in town, Richard is a teacher in nearby city and the children...that’s where the perfect picture crumbles. In the warm, safe nest that Simone wants to offer her family holes slowly begin to form as they unwittingly slide towards the edge of a cliff. The Evil Inside Us was inspired by the Dutch Bonnie and Clyde, who left a string of victims in their wake in Twente in 2014. The male half of duo was a Brazilian adopted by Dutch parents as a child. Hartman, herself an adopted child, transforms this fact into a stunning family drama.

World rights: Cargo – Psychological thriller – 288 pages – 2018 39

SUCCESFUL TITLES FICTION

Stefan Hertmans Antigone in Molenbeek This story of a suicide bomber’s sister will grab you by the throat ‘Antigone in Molenbeek is an impressive, empathetic monologue that leaves us with pressing questions.’ **** DE STANDAARD ‘A timely plea for empathy.’

VOLKSKRANT

Antigone in Molenbeek is the highly charged account of a young woman who goes in search of her dead brother. She wants most of all to be able to bury him, but that proves impossible. Drawing upon the famous tragedy of Sophocles, Stefan Hertmans has written an extremely topical, haunting and poetic book. ‘”We still don’t know for sure where your brother... Enfin, where your brother’s remains...enfin, I mean: we still don’t know whether the material will actually be released.” “The MATERIAL...sir?! But sir, it’s now taken weeks that I...” “Quiet Nouria, quiet, just let me, er, have – my say.” Ahem. Smoker’s cough. A sip of coffee. “Like some water, Nouria?” “No sir, tell me, where is he... where is my brother?”’ World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: La Castor Astral (France) – Paperback 88 pages – September 2017 40

SUCCESSFUL TITLES FICTION

Stefan Hertmans The Convert 85.000 copies sold ‘The Convert is a crucial book that will stir hearts and minds. […] Once again a testament to his outstanding authorship.’ **** DE STANDAARD ‘From out of a small history Hertmans spins an immense story with impressive imagination… [he] evokes the era as a snickering character hiding from just us around the corner.’ **** DE VOLKSKRANT .

‘The Convert is a portrait of an iron-willed woman. Hertmans has created a heroine for the ages.’ ***** KNACK ..

In a small town in Provence, France, the people have spoken of a pogrom and a hidden chest since time immemorial. At the end of the nineteenth century a startling collection of Jewish documents was found in a synagogue in Cairo. It is here that Stefan Hertmans discovers the traces of a distinguished Christian noblewoman from the eleventh century who abandons her life for the love of a Jewish boy. He follows in the footsteps of this woman as she flees with her forbidden love and undertakes a dizzying journey full of hardships, hunted by everyone and everything. Hertmans based the story of The Convert on historical facts, including a letter of recommendation written by a rabbi on parchment, and he brings the Middle Ages to life with immense imagination and stylistic ingenuity. It is a story that draws him into a chaotic world of passion, hate, love and death, and one that in the end carries him from Cairo back to the small village in Provence where he has made his home for decades. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Hanser Berlin (Germany), Marginesy (Poland), Harvill Secker (UK), Text (ANZ), Pantheon (USA, Canada), Gallimard (France), Marsilio (Italy), ArtPeople (Denmark), Norstedts (Sweden), Europa (Hungary), Fraktura (Croatia), Beletrina (Slovenia), Perseus (Bulgaria) – Novel 314 pages – October 2016 – English sample, full German translation available 41

SUCCESFUL TITLES FICTION

Margriet de Moor Sleepless Night Why did her young husband commit suicide? Why does she bake cake at night? ‘A delicately unfolded, cleverly constructed and, through their psychological finesse, fascinating story.’ FRANKFURTER RUNDSCHAU ‘Margriet de Moor tells us the story of a young woman who gets up in the middle of the night and starts baking a cake. Her lover is asleep in her bedroom upstairs, and when it is time to remove the cake from the oven, the reader has read a tragic story of love and death. No doubt, the impression made by Sleepless Night is inversely proportional to its length: unforgettable.’ JEAN MATTERN, EDITIONS GRASSET Everyone thought she would move house after the shameful incident. An accident, she called it, the shot in the chicory greenhouse. She remained, renounced her widow’s existence and started meeting men through personal ads. The encounters always followed the same pattern: getting to know one another, stories, a shared night. But the memory of her deceased husband still has her in its grasp. During a sleepless winter’s night she thinks over the years past and tries to fathom her young husband. Why did he do it? And what is her part in the story? With her powerful voice, Margriet de Moor tells a gripping love story, about departure and death, rage and jealousy and the possibility of a new beginning.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Carl Hanser (Germany), Grasset (France), New Vessel Press (USA), Anansi (Canada) – Novel – 125 pages – June 2017 Full French translation & English sample translation available 42

SUCCESSFUL TITLES FICTION

Koen Peeters The People Healer A vanishing farm existence and a guilt-ridden colonial past * ECI Literature Prize 2017 * ‘In a style that’s crystal clear, without so much as a hint of woolly language, Peeters performs nothing short of literary magic in The People Healer.’ ***** DE VOLKSKRANT ‘Koen Peeters, writer and anthropologist, examines both black and white to uncover the formula that explains why we become the people we are.’ **** DE STANDAARD ‘This novel is further proof that Peeters is one of our most sophisticated authors.’ **** HET NIEUWSBLAD ‘The People Healer doesn’t just betray a sharp eye for the daily routines of Westhoek and Congo, what make this novel more than interesting are the philosophical reflections that are addressed.’ **** KNACK The young Remi, predestined to follow in his father’s footsteps as a farmer, is pursued by irrepressible dreams and voices. His uncle whispers strange, fiercely moving stories to him about the war, about a ghost and about a black soldier. When Remi announces that he has a vocation and is to enter a strict order of monks, no one can understand him. In the monastery his personality is redrawn: he meditates and studies doggedly, estranging still more of his family and searching for quiet within himself. But the daemon inside will not be silenced. The old stories push Remi to the heart of Africa. He chases ever further until he meets the nganga, a healer, in Kwango who helps him get to know his daemon.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Perseus Books (Bulgaria) – Novel 320 pages – February 2017 – ECI Literature Prize 2017 English sample translation available 43

SUCCESFUL TITLES FICTION

Arjen van Veelen Notes on the Relocation of Obelisks A gripping debut novel about Alexander the Great, modern loneliness and the loss of a friend * Shortlisted for the Libris Literature Prize 2018 * ‘Van Veelen writes astonishingly well. A delicate pen filled with golden ink.’ DE MORGEN ‘Notes on the Relocation of Obelisks is so much more than a heart-wrenching requiem novel. It is an invitation to live life with intention, to look around passionately and to enjoy wherever possible. Because before you know it, night will set, and the curtains won’t be raising for an encore.’ **** KNACK ‘An ode to friendship. [...] The result - an intellectual, precise study of decline and oblivion – is provocative, ambitious and genuine.’ **** NRC HANDELSBLAD A young writer travels to Alexandria with his deceased friend Tomas’s books in his suitcase. He wants to immortalize the books by putting them on the shelves of the famous Ancient Library of Alexandria. At the same time he goes in search of the tomb of Alexander Great, whose biography he has wanted to write for some time. During his wanderings through the city, all kinds of memories come to him of Tomas, whose ghost walks its streets. In this essayistic novel Arjen van Veelen looks for ways to give meaning to life and death. Against the background of an ancient city, the Flemish countryside and the poor neighbourhoods of America he creates a personal monument to a lost friendship. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 249 pages – October 2017 English sample available – Shortlisted for the Libris Literature Prize 2018 44

SUCCESSFUL TITLES FICTION

Tommy Wieringa The Blessed Rita ‘His best book.’ ‘Masterpiece.’ 120.000 copies sold * Shortlisted for the Libris Literature & E. du Perron Prizes 2018 * . ‘The masterly The Blessed Rita is at once both The Great Twente Novel and completely European. [...] It tells the story of a shrinking life in a shrinking region—but Wieringa’s version of that familiar story feels like the ultimate one.’ ***** NRC HANDELSBLAD ‘It is his best book, his master hand has bested itself again. The depth is deeper, the views stretch farther. His style approaches perfection, or surpasses it.’ ***** ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD

‘He writes like a fearless showboat in a bar, tethering his listeners to his every word.’ **** DE MORGEN/DE VOLKSKRANT His whole life, Paul Krüzen has lived with his father in an old, haunted farmhouse, not far from the German border. Where once his father took care of him, now he takes care of his father. In those fifty years, they have seen their village change drastically. The world is on the move: the Chinese now run the bars and restaurants in Mariënveen, while Russians, Bulgarians and Poles have become a familiar presence.. The great change began with a the arrival of a Russian pilot who escaped the Soviet Union in a crop duster and crashed in a cornfield behind their house at the height of the Cold War. This triggered a chain of events from which Paul Krüzen and his father have never fully recovered. The Blessed Rita is an enchanting memento for those left behind and an ode to those wanting to transcend themselves. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Scribe (UK & ANZ), Éditions Stock (France), Iperborea (Italy), Brombergs (Sweden), Hanser (Germany), Jelenkor (Hungary), Gyldendal (Norway); American rights handled for De Bezige Bij by Inkwell – Novel – 286 pages October 2017 – Shortlisted for the Libris Literature & E. du Perron Prizes 2018 English sample translation available 45

SUCCESFUL TITLES NON-FICTION

Ignaas Devisch Excess of Empathy Is empathy always good? Can we have too much of it? * Shortlisted for the Socrates Cup 2018 for best Dutch philosophy book of the year.* ‘A multifaceted as well as nuanced book about a current theme. [...] Exciting questions that Devisch raises in an accessible style.’ TROUW ‘In The Excess of Empathy Devisch shows us with surprising ease how the world of empathy of works— because empathy is an emotion that is more complex than most people think. The Excess of Empathy is a wellsupported and universally accessible argument.’ DE LEESCLUB VAN ALLES

‘The Excess of Empathy is a good and very useful book that asks particularly important questions and sketches very clear lines for further debate. At the very least it is an “in your face” argument against those who think the world will be saved by warm feelings of charity alone.’ DE REACTOR In a time in which social contrasts and social inequality are coming to the fore, there are loud calls for more empathy. From Barack Obama to Angela, many regard the human ability to put ourselves in another person’s place as a driving force behind morality and a tried and tested remedy for indifference. But is empathy always good? At the level of personal relationships it is, but empathy is not a miracle cure that will solve all social problems. A degree of indifference is desirable, sometimes even a dire necessity. In this book Ignaas Devisch guides the reader through the history of thinking about empathy, taking examples from current debates about society as his starting point. He challenges us to think about our view of humanity: deep down, aren’t we all not just friends but scoundrels as well? World rights: De Bezige Bij –– Philosophy – 192 pages – 2017 – English sample available 46

SUCCESSFUL TITLES NON-FICTION

Arnold van de Laar Under the Knife A history of surgery told in twenty - eight remarkable operations ‘Van de Laar renders complex surgical procedures not only understandable, but also immensely entertaining (…) Sit back, relax and enjoy this boisterous exploration of the surgeons craft.’ THE TIMES ‘This is history with a surgeon’s touch: deft, incisive and sometimes excruciating bloody (…) Under the Knife is rich in historical colour, traces the evolution of surgery from the rough craft to what it is today: a fascinating combination of art, medical science and still – daring – butchery.’ SUNDAY TIMES ‘Under the Knife does not aim to be comprehensive, just eyeopening and, frequently, eye-watering (…) a fascinating history of surgery.’ ***** TELEGRAPH ‘Surgeon’ derives from the Greek for ‘hand work’, and since the dawn of time the surgeon has been charged with the task of patching people up when they need it. From the dark centuries of bloodletting and of amputations without anesthetic to today’s sterile, high-tech operating theatres, surgeon Arnold van de Laar takes us on a journey through the wayward history of surgery. The patients that feature in his story are hardly ordinary: Empress Sissi (stabbed), Louis XIV (fistula in the anus), Pope John Paul II (colostomy), John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald (gunshot wounds), Lenin (cerebral infarction), Houdini (ruptured appendix), Albert Einstein (aneurysm) and Bob Marley (melanoma under the toenail). Van de Laar uses medical case histories that fire the imagination to examine issues of the past, present and future. His tone is lucid and professional, and harsh reality is tempered by plenty of humour, making Under the Knife a rich medical and cultural history and a modern anatomy lesson for us all. World rights: Thomas Rap – Rights sold: Droemer Knaur (Germany), KOC Üniversitesi Yayιnlarι (Turkey), John Murray (UK), St. Martin’s Press (USA), EULAY (South-Korea), United Sky (China), Eksmo (Russia), Tchelet Israël (Israel), Literackie (Poland), Salamandra (Spain) Literary non-fiction – 414 pages – 2014 – Full English translation available 47

SUCCESFUL TITLES NON-FICTION

David Van Reybrouck Against Elections An urgent call for reform that seeks to breathe new life into democracy ‘Cogently and persuasively, David Van Reybrouck pleads for a return to selection by lot, and outlines a range of well thought out plans for how sortitive democracy might be implemented. With the popular media and the political parties fiercely opposed to it, sortitive democracy will not find it easy to win acceptance. Nonetheless, it may well be an idea whose time has come.’ J.M. COETZEE ‘In compelling us to subject all our received ideas and deeplyheld convictions to rigorous scrutiny, this fine iconoclastic work could not be more timely. David Van Reybrouck reveals the startling historical fact that the French and Americans chose the electoral method precisely because it was undemocratic and then goes on relentlessly to demonstrate that far from safeguarding our right to self-determination, elections are actually impeding our democracy.’ KAREN ARMSTRONG Our democracy is suffering from anorexia. Whereas it once fed on various forms of participation, these days it tries to survive on the thin gruel of a puny ritual: elections. We are neglecting our democracy at a time when the world is undergoing radical change. The traditional pillars of society are disappearing, people are better educated, information travels faster, the media have become much more commercial and social media are creating new forms of political awareness. All this demands more involvement, meaningful participation and greater transparency. David Van Reybrouck, who founded the successful citizens’ initiative G1000 in Belgium, examines new ways of revitalizing our impotent democracy and involving citizens in everything that concerns us in society. Here he issues an urgent call for change. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: The Bodley Head (World English), Seven Stories (USA), Wallstein (Germany), Taurus (World Spanish), Social Sciences Academic Press (China), Tiderne Skifter (Denmark), Natur och Kultur (Sweden), Actes Sud (France), Feltrinelli (Italy), Taurus (Spain), Galapagos (Korea), Font (Norway), Gondolat (Hungary), Hosei University (Japan), Editorial Ayine (Brazil), Ad Marginem (Russia), Krtina (Slovenia), Futura (Serbia), Al Arabi (World Arabic) – Politics – 174 pages – 2013; 2016 with a new afterword – Full English, French, etc. translations available 48

  ,        

Francien Schuursma Publisher De Bezige Bij

Haye Koningsveld Editor-in-chief non-fiction De Bezige Bij

Catharina Schilder Editor non-fiction De Bezige Bij

Peter van der Zwaag Editor-in-chief translated fiction De Bezige Bij

Marjolein Schurink Publisher Cargo

Chris Kooi Editor De Bezige Bij; Cargo

Arend Hosman Publisher Thomas Rap

Saartje Schwachöfer Editor Thomas Rap

Mark Beumer Head of sales De Bezige Bij; Thomas Rap; Cargo

Marijke Nagtegaal Senior rights manager De Bezige Bij; Thomas Rap; Cargo

THO MA S RA P

Haico Kaashoek Rights assistant De Bezige Bij; Thomas Rap; Cargo

C ARG O