Foreign Rights Guide De Bezige Bij, Thomas Rap, Cargo. March 2020 by De Bezige Bij

De Bezige Bij The Busy Bee Foreign Rights Guide London Book Fair 2020 You’ll ﬁnd us at the IRC, tables 2q & 2r

Photo cover: Selma van de Perre, age 23 Photo inside cover: Selma van de Perre, age 97

NEW LITERARY FICTION

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FOREIGN RIGHTS GUIDE LONDON BOOK FAIR 2020

Maarten Asscher Ewoud Kieft Erwin Mortier Oscar van den Boogaard Bart Chabot Sytske van Koeveringe Frederik Willem Daem

NEW LITERARY FICTION A House in England ........................................................... 2 The Imperfected ................................................................. 4 The Immaculate .................................................................. 6 The Hunting Lodge ............................................................ 8 Daddy’s Hand ................................................................... 10 Day Night Still Light ........................................................ 12 Signs of Life ..................................................................... 14

Hugo Claus

MODERN CLASSIC A Gentle Destruction........................................................ 16

Sinan Çankaya Doortje Smithuijsen Mohamed El Bachiri & David Van Reybrouck Coen Simon Daan Borrel Floor Boogaart

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION My Countless Identities.................................................... 18 Golden Mountains ............................................................ 20 Mohamed’s Odyssee ........................................................ 22 Plea Against Enthusiasm .................................................. 24 The Year of the New Story .............................................. 26 Schorem ............................................................................ 28

Kasper van Beek

COMMERCIAL FICTION The Hunger ....................................................................... 30

Kees van Beijnum Peter Buwalda Ronald Giphart Alma Mathijsen Marcel Möring Koen Peeters Tommy Wieringa

SUCCESSFUL TITLES FICTION 23 seconds ........................................................................ 32 Otmar’s Sons .................................................................... 33 Time Enough .................................................................... 34 I Don’t Want To Be a Dog ............................................... 35 Amen ................................................................................ 36 The People Healer ............................................................ 37 The Blessed Rita............................................................... 38

Onno Blom Bart Van Loo Selma van de Perre Chris de Stoop

SUCCESSFUL TITLES NON-FICTION Young Rembrandt ............................................................ 39 The Burgundians .............................................................. 40 My Name is Selma ........................................................... 41 When the Water Breaks ................................................... 42

Stefan Buijsman

PREVIEW Advancing Intelligence .................................................... 43

About De Bezige Bij

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DE BEZIGE BIJ

‘As a child, what baffled me was how my grandparents had made it through the war with their three children. All five of them had been interned in “transit camp” Westerbork. No one came back from there alive, did they? What also puzzled me was why Grandma Roosje and Oa had left Holland for good only after the war. Why not simply stay, once the danger had passed? Or, if one truly wanted to leave, why not move to England already in the late 1930s, as soon as you saw that things were going all wrong?’ (…) ‘In our bookcase at home is a photo book entitled The Yellow Star, showing the worst of the worst. How often, as a boy of eight or ten, when my parents were gone, did I leaf through it in secret. Gruesome, incomprehensible, fascinating. My grandparents and their three children – which means my father, too – were they actually there? My father has told me that they were at Westerbork, but I never get to hear much more than that.’ With seventeen books to his name, MAARTEN ASSCHER (b. 1957) is a prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction and a translator of poetry. An earlier novel and various of his novellas have been translated into German. A collection of his essays has appeared in the US. A House in England is his first book with De Bezige Bij.

NEW LITERARY FICTION

Maarten Asscher

A House in England A Grandson’s Novel This novel evokes the magical world of an unforgettable house. It is also a disturbing meditation on the damage that unavoidably occurs when things are salvaged from the past To cure his persistent insomnia, the narrator of A House in England imagines nocturnal walks through the house of his grandparents in a quiet London suburb. In that house, in Kew, near the famed botanic gardens, he used to spend his yearly summer holidays in the 1960s as a boy, being the eldest grandson. His grandparents were always bickering over trifles in their nevertheless indestructible marriage. Although of Jewish descent, they miraculously survived persecution in Nazioccupied Holland, together with their three children. After the war, in 1947, they suddenly moved to England. During his nightly walks, the rooms, the paintings, the beautiful garden and his grandparents come alive. But brooding over his memories at night and rummaging through family papers by day, the narrator gradually realises that his grandparents’ survival of the war in Holland came at a price. This is a sad element in the whole story, a proverbial snake in the paradise. World rights exc. Germany: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Luchterhand (Germany by Agentur Petra Eggers) – Novel 238 pages – February 2020 – English sample and synopsis available 3

DE BEZIGE BIJ

‘I could start with the moment I came into his life. Keep in mind that in those days a Gena was only a simple application. We operated with clearly circumscribed objectives but had the same basic structure as the later, autonomous models.’ On War Enthusiasm: ‘Kieft tells his story in captivating fashion. His prose is crystal clear, his insights into the events are profound, and his approach

original.’ – De Morgen

‘Impressive. A shocking reading experience.’ – De Correspondent On The Banned Book: ‘A clarifying book that offers nuance in a time when people look up concepts like populism, alternative facts and fake news.’ – De Standaard

(b. 1977) is a writer, historian and musician. Previously, he wrote War Enthusiasm and The Banned Book, respectively about the attraction of war and Nazism. Both books were shortlisted for the Libris History Prize. He wrote his dissertation about the rise of religious nationalism in the early twentieth century and reviewed both novels and non-fiction for the newspaper NRC Handelsblad. The Imperfected is his fiction debut. EWOUD KIEFT

NEW LITERARY FICTION

Ewoud Kieft

The Imperfected For fans of the film Her, and the series Black Mirror and The Handmaid’s Tale. What will remain of humanity when technology will exceed our own capabilities? Cas has grown up in a society where artificial intelligence permeates every facet of life, as a practical guide, listening ear, mental coach and negotiator in matters of the heart. The best possible self seems to be within arm's reach. What started out as a convenient app has become his faithful companion Gena, a voice that guides all his decisions and knows more about the milestones in his life than anyone else. But whenever he chooses, Cas can turn the voice off. Gena notices that Cas is wrestling with feelings of desperation. Then he vanishes. How could Gena have lost track of him? In The Imperfected, Kieft shows with chilling realism how intimate the relationship between human and machine can become. Can the two merge completely? Or are there irreconcilable differences? And most important of all, is this our future?

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 384 pages – May 2020 – English sample translation available 5

DE BEZIGE BIJ

Press on previous work: ‘Mortier is superb… a poised consideration of war’s long impact on feeling and faith.’ – Kirkus Reviews ‘Almost

too beautiful

a writer...the

Proust is visible on every page.’ –

footprint of

Financial Times

‘The subtlety with which Mortier brings together

aesthetics and tragedy and lays out his narrative is breathtaking. Everything in this novel is precisely on target. Our verdict, in one word? Masterly.’ – de Standaard (b. 1965) made his mark in 1999 with his debut novel Marcel, which was awarded various prizes, nominated for the most important literary awards and published in seven languages. In 2015, his novel While the Gods Were Sleeping won the prestigious AKO Literature Prize and was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Stammered Songbook received unanimous praise and won the 2013 Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger in the essay category. Five of his major works have been published in English by Pushkin Press. ERWIN MORTIER

NEW LITERARY FICTION

Erwin Mortier

The Immaculate The long-awaited new novel about the complexity of love

In The Immaculate, Marcel returns home in a final attempt to break through the suppressed past and discover why he is named after a great uncle who died on the Eastern Front. Mortier’s sequel to his acclaimed and prize-winning debut novel Marcel is once again a dark family history, in which the Flemish clay is ruthlessly turned over to bring the dark past to light. And Mortier does so magnificently with his elegant, evocative style in which not a word, letter or comma is out of place and which teems with marvellous images. With this longawaited novel about the complexity of love, Erwin Mortier confirms yet again that he belongs to the highest class of Dutch-language literature.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 240 pages – April 2020 – English sample translation available 7

DE BEZIGE BIJ

Praise: This

game of fact and fiction fits the literary theme in Den Boogaard’s work perfectly: fluent identity.

Van ***** – Elsevier

On Child Soldier: ‘A

magnum opus.

Child Soldier has the required

magnitude and class... an author at the

peak of his

powers.’ ***** – De Standaard ‘A literary pearl. The best of this writer thus far.’ ***** – Het Nieuwsblad (b. 1964) grew up in Suriname and the Netherlands. He studied law and French, 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 and filmed. In 2018, his novel Child Soldier was published. This modern Buddenbrooks sketches the interwoven history of two aristocratic families through the eyes of their last of kin, who suspects that he is the son of Prince Bernhard. Van den Boogard currently lives between Berlin, Antwerp and Sint Martens Latem, an artists’ village near Ghent. OSCAR VAN DEN BOOGAARD

NEW LITERARY FICTION

Oscar van den Boogaard

The Hunting Lodge A stunning autobiographical family saga

After his mother Elsie’s death, eighteen-year-old Maxwell travels to Suriname, the paradise where he spent the first years of his childhood. As soon as he arrives at the river Marowijne on the national border with French Guyana, he recalls the dramatic crossing he made with his parents a few years before. When the family returns to the Netherlands at the end of the 1960s, they move into a dark hunting lodge on royal grounds. The estate manager’s adult son has an unhealthy fixation with Maxwell, who by then begins to suspect that he is the son of the prince and not his father Jim. When Maxwell is twelve years old, Jim finds himself transferred to Suriname again. The prince, enmeshed in the Lockheed Affair, craves Elsie’s attention. When he visits the lodge the harmony seems restored, but each time he leaves Maxwell feels guilty towards Jim for being a secret child. Maxwell’s salvation arrives in the form of the new neighbours, a childless couple with a collection of contemporary art, who welcome him as their own son. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 376 pages – March 2020 – English sample translation available 9

DE BEZIGE BIJ

‘A heart-wrenchingly beautiful autobiographical novel about Chabot’s painful youth.’ – Volkskrant Magazine

‘Chabot may have, as he puts it, died a few times during his youth, but that didn’t break him. His humour, his

empathy and his sense of wonder about the world around him have proudly survived. Chabot has turned it into a

splendid, poetic novel with hints of magical realism. With gentleness and even a loving gaze, he sketches his childhood and the difficult relationship with his parents that will never, not even when he is an adult, get better.’ ****1/2 Telegraaf

BART CHABOT (b. 1954) began his career as a poet with Popcorn in 1980. He broke through to a larger audience with his four-part biography of the Dutch musician Herman Brood. In 2008 he was awarded the Johnny van Doorn Prize for spoken letters. In 2011 his book Deeper Layers, a personal account of Chabot’s cerebellar pontine angle tumour, was published, as were his debut novel Triggerhappy in 2013 and the novel Easy Street in 2016.

NEW LITERARY FICTION

Bart Chabot

Daddy’s Hand Bart Chabot’s autobiographical account of his childhood will make a deep impact on every reader ‘My mother preferred not to touch me. That I know for sure because she never touched me. She did not want that I touched her, and she did not want to touch me. If we kissed each other, when greeting, we kissed the air; that could do the least harm. A hug was out of the question.’ Only after landing in the hospital yet again in 2018 and looking death in the eye does Bart Chabot ask himself the question, having delayed it for so long, of who he really is. He digs through the memories of his youth which, as we can safely conclude, was extremely difficult. His parents routinely belittled and mentally and physically abused him to the point that one day he made the decision to break with them. From his hospital bed he recounts in unsparing and moving fashion a rich but troubled life. Daddy’s Hand is a piercingly but nonetheless humorously written book full of unexpected lightness. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 416 pages – 30 January 2020 – English sample translation available 11

DE BEZIGE BIJ

That’s because otherwise butterfly stiches will fall off

CHAK What an awful sound

the

And you should also know that for the next few days it could

Haha Yeaaaahnooooo not great

Turn blue, purple and green, but that’s completely

We have to do it again

Normal

Hold on a second Are you feeling better yet, girl? See, there you go, it’s no big deal Okaaayyy here we go again!

Yeaaahhhh girl, it’s completely normal to have a blue, green or purple breast –

CHAK

For the time being, don’t worry

So, that’s a wrap

It’s nothing

Don’t be alarmed by all the blood We’ll clean it up

No girl, don’t kid yourself You’re still so young

You should know that for the next twenty-four hours you can’t shower

SYTSKE FREDERIKA VAN KOEVERINGE (b. 1988) made her debut in 2017 with the novel It’s Monday Today, which was translated into French and German. Among other things, she writes works of theatre and publishes regularly in the newspaper NRC Handelsblad.

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

Sytske Frederika van Koeveringe

Day Night Still Light An Archive of Laughter An account, written in one sitting after being diagnosed with breast cancer, which ends with a letter to her tumour in which she invites it for dinner For years, Systke Frederika van Koeveringe had maintained a logbook of laughter, endlessly fascinated with the phenomenon. What is laughter? When she heard the serious news about a tumour inside her breast, she automatically returned to her ‘laughter archive’, and saw that laughter presented a genial contrast with the cruelty of a tumour. From that moment, she hasn’t stopped writing: ‘I work myself to the bone because I, by accident, constantly imagine that I’m about to die. I live in a kind of now or never.’ Laughter and tumour are rather playfully intertwined. An essay about laughter alternates with among other things a dialogue between two doctors taking a biopsy, a monologue by Systke’s doctor, a list of everything larger than, smaller than or exactly 2.2 centimetres. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 224 pages – February 2020 – English sample translation available 13

DE BEZIGE BIJ ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

On Even the Birds Are Falling: 'In intriguing short stories, you dive into a sombre, sometimes alienating world and you’re close to the characters’ hearts. A surprising debut.’ – Elle 'You simply Cleeft

need to have read a debut like this one’ –

For ten minutes he stared into space, sobbing, and although the moment had every semblance of his lowest ebb, at the same time it felt like something he had spent so long waiting for. He embraced the breaking point, as if it were a vindication, as if sorrow had only earned its place when it became visible, and pain only became tangible when he could register the tears, feel them running down his cheeks, taste them, salty on his tongue. (b. 1988) is a writer from Brussels, Belgium. He has published stories in, among other literary magazines, Das Magazin, Revisor, The Literary Review, DWB and Oogst, of which he is a cofounder. In the late summer of 2015, Daem made his debut with the short story collection Even the Birds Are Falling, which won the 2016 Debut Prize. FREDERIK WILLEM DAEM

Frederik Willem Daem

Signs of Life 00.

A debut novel about millennials, heartbreak and the longing for the stability, told from the barstool As the evening in pub De Kauw grew later, only more heads stumbled in and before you knew it everyone stood shoulder to shoulder, bobbing back and forth with nothing but the bar as buoy. Mist and sweat fought in the air, and next to you someone slurped the last bit of their Long Island Iced Tea from between the melting ice cubes. Soon there would be reluctant dancing, even though the floor had been sticky for weeks with beer. For three years Frederik Willem Daem drifted from one pub to the next to write until closing time. From his experiences in that world comes his novel Signs of Life. Everything came together in De Kauw, here he sought refuge, waiting for what was and what was still to come, as the pub worked through its own loss. This debut novel is a dazzling book about addiction, detachment and advertising and reads like an intellectual haze you won’t quickly sober up from.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel –336 pages – March 2020 15

Praise: ‘In A Gentle Destruction Claus describes the ideals,

romances and fights of the 50s. The book is a romantic love story, but it also shows the miserable circumstances in which they lived’ – Trouw On previous work: ‘The Sorrow of Belgium is impressive in size and ambition:

Buildingsroman and epic, it is as if A Portrait of The Artist As A Young Man were written to the scale of Ulysses…

A formidable achievement’ – Independent HUGO CLAUS (1929-2008) ranks as the most important Flemish writer since WWII. His supremely realistic work broke with a traditional way of writing. Characteristic of his 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 received more than fifty prizes. 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).

MODERN CLASSIC ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Hugo Claus

A Gentle Destruction 'Claus’ work is as wide as the soul is deep.’ – Gerrit Komrij (author)

The start of the 1950s. André, the narrator of A Gentle Destruction, meets Sabine de Comptine d’Aarselaer, a woman who unites beauty with passion. He follows her from Ghent to Paris, where he eventually lands in the Flemish-Dutch artists’ colony, an environment Hugo Claus describes sometimes satirically, sometimes movingly, though always flawlessly. ‘Iris, who is divorced from her engineer, lived for four weeks in my farmer’s hut. She bought the bedroom curtains and hung them up. A few times she danced in her underwear in the orchard. She thought I looked like her ex-husband. But young. She cut my toenails. And one morning she was nowhere to be found. Five hundred francs lay on the table underneath an ashtray overflowing with her English cigarettes, along with a letter: ‘You don’t love me. You don’t love anyone. I can’t take it.’

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novella – 144 pages – February 2020 (first publication: 1988) 17

‘Where are you from?’ asked the man. I was surprised and fell silent. We were both caught in the familiar guessing game. It was a seemingly simple question, but in that period the question of all questions. I was born in Nijmegen, but the kids in my class didn’t care. In Turkey, they in turn knew fairly quickly that I was an Almanci, a German, the Turkish equivalent for a foreigner – a collection bin for everyone from elsewhere. ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I think about it a lot.’ Why I confided that last bit to him, I haven’t got a clue. The man gave me a piercing look. He nodded. Another silence. Maybe he was from Afghanistan. ‘Be like a bird,’ he said. ‘Don’t tie yourself down, you don’t have to choose.’

SINAN ÇANKAYA (b. 1982) is a cultural anthropologist and a writer. He obtained his PhD with a study on diversity within the police force. Afterwards he conducted research into ethnic profiling. Cankaya currently works as a lecturer at Vrije University in Amsterdam, and he writes monthly contributions for the digital newspaper De Correspondent.

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Sinan Çankaya

My Countless Identities A penetrating and universal story about growing up as the child of immigrants ‘What do you want me to say?’ asks Sinan Cankaya when he’s invited to speak at the 40-year anniversary of his former secondary school. The invitation creates an opening through which forgotten memories from his youth and time at secondary school begin to wriggle their way out. There is his former history teacher Nico Konst, who was once the second in command at the extreme-right Centrumpartij. As the day of the address approaches, it becomes clearer to him what he wants to say. He wants to be critical of the educational practices at home, on the street and in the mosque, of the Netherlands, of Turkish nationalism, of the anti-racism movement and racism denial. Nor does he spare himself. Reflecting on loyalty, displacement and, above all, the search for a home, Cantaya sets himself against clear-cut identities and refuses to a tell his story within the contours of his own body.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Identity, migration, politics – 208 pages – May 2020 19

‘Two hundred people, roughly between the ages of 20 and 35, all with their phones in hand. ‘Fuck,’ says one of the three boys next to me. ‘What was that hashtag again? Moëtform?’ ‘Moëtmoment,’ answer the other two in chorus, their gazes and mobiles not straying from the hologram on the lake. Everyone seems hypnotised by the projection, as if their devices were being drawn by some magnetic force towards the hologram (…) Some people mumble that it’s cold, others complain that it’s all taking too long. But nobody stops filming. And nobody says: how strange actually, that we’re all standing here in the cold, making videos of a hologram of a villa, while we’re all standing with our backs to the real thing.’

DOORTJE SMITHUIJSEN (b. 1992) studied philosophy and journalism. In her journalistic work she prefers to study modern people: who they are and how they live. She made a documentary called My Daughter the Vlogger, about the parents of children with their own YouTube channels. Together with Lena Bril, Smithuijsen also hosts the Monica Geuze Fan Podcast, about life in the age of social media. She has written for NRC Handelsblad and Vrij Nederland, among other publications. Golden Mountains is her first book.

Doortje Smithuijsen

Golden Mountains Portrait of a Digital Generation What kind of society encourages people to transform themselves into online advertisements? A sharp analysis and a discerning look into the world of influencers. Refusing judgement, Doortje Smithuijsen perceptively depicts a generation obsessed with its online image. Writing in a crystal clear tone, she paints a complete picture of several influencers, while also analysing the rapidly changing world in which we live: a world in which we conform to what advanced technology asks of us, and in which the digital world increasingly prevails over the analogue. For twelve months Smithuijsen followed various influencers in their daily lives. She wanted to know what hides behind the perfect images posted on Instagram. How does it feel to put your life in service of your online image? What is it like to tailor your behaviour to an algorithm? And what she really wanted to find out: why are these people so eager to manifest themselves digitally? And what does that say about her generation?

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Non-fiction – 224 pages – April 2020 – English sample translation available 21

On A Jihad for Love (published in English, French and German): ‘A passionate plea against hate, revenge and the urge to destroy’ – de Volkskrant ‘This is the best

book about Islam, but also about

Christianity, that the father and widow could have written.’ – Nederlands Dagblad ‘In short, clear sentences and chapters of no more than a few pages David Van Reybrouck proclaims El Bachiri’s message: “a tribute to his wife and a humane

message of

love and compassion.”’ – NRC Handelsblad

MOHAMED EL BACHIRI is the husband of Loubna Lafquiri, the love of his life and the mother of their children, who died on 22nd March 2016 in the Brussels attacks. In 2017 he and David Van Reybrouck published A Jihad for Love, a passionate plea against hate, revenge and the urge to destroy. El Bachiri was awarded the Konstanzer Konzil Prize in 2019 for his contribution to European rapprochement and dialogue. Since 2019, two theatre productions of A Jihad for Love have premiered. DAVID VAN REYBROUCK writes nonfiction, poetry and plays. His published work include Congo: The Epic History of a People, Against Elections and the collection Odes. In 2010 he received three important literary distinctions and in 2014 he won the Gouden Ganzenveer Award.

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

Mohamed El Bachiri David Van Reybrouck

Mohamed’s Odyssey A moving and wise story of loss, grief, gratitude and love. Mohammed El Bachiri’s voice rings clearer and sharper than ever. ‘Here we go then, set off together on an odyssey without end, in search of a land called peace, guided by a star. Loubna.’ Three years after the Brussels attacks in which he lost his wife Loubna, Mohamed El Bachiri’s voice rings sharper than ever. With great precision he recounts his youth in Molenbeek, his life as the father of three children after the death of his wife and his vision of fraternity as the foundation for the future. In doing so he is equally critical of white intolerance and Islamic bigotry. He single-handedly sketches the contours of a modern, open society in which differences can coexist and humanity prevail. From within his own bottomless grief he offers an impressive testimony full of wisdom and love. His words are simple, his message grand. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Memoir – 144 pages – November 2019

DE BEZIGE BIJ

On previous work: ‘Stimulating essays from an original Groene Amsterdammer

thinker’ – de

‘Coen Simon is a careful observer and writes evocatively. His writing flows effortlessly from literary to rational

storytelling

analysis, and back again.’ – de Volkskrant

big questions of our time in a way that’s both accessible and inspiring is an art that few understand. Coen Simons is more than trusted to do it.’ – ‘Philosophising about the

de Correspondent

COEN SIMON (b. 1972) is a philosopher and the founder of a philosophical thinktank. In his essays in NRC Handelsblad, Trouw and De Correspondent, he refutes contemporary dogmas and clichés. Previous works include Why We Seek but Never Find Ourselves and Doing Philosophy is Easier Than You Think. In 2012 Simon won the Socrates Cup with his book And Then We Knew Everything. In 2013 he wrote the essay Guilt for the national Month of Philosophy.

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

Coen Simon

Plea Against Enthusiasm If Truth Becomes a Matter of Taste A provocative pamphlet about why we will follow anyone but believe no one. ‘We’re not pessimists. No way. No fucking way.’ No matter how passionately we might argue for a better world, we cannot deny that, besides enthusiasm, a feeling of helplessness reigns. For the first time in history, nihilism has taken hold. Anyone can believe anything without falling through the cracks. Because no matter what you are, be it an antivaxxer, climate-denier, Marxist or neoliberal, you will always have enough followers in your bubble. Today it’s not truth, but enthusiasm that persuades. ‘People don’t buy what you do, but why you do it,’ is the motto of a TED Talk with more than 46 million views. And that is how it is: rather than by facts, we’d rather be convinced by ideas worth spreading. Coen Simons warns against the consequences of an enthusiasm that dispenses so easily with facts. Because while enthusiasm goes viral, the truth lies somewhere in the middle – between gluten-free rubbish and fact-free bullshit. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Philosophy – 94 pages – February 2020 – English sample translation available 25

DE BEZIGE BIJ

On Sometimes Love Is This: ‘Daan Borrel is on a mission: to get women familiar

with their sexuality’ – De Volkskrant Excerpt from interview in Elle: The aim of her search was to find a new narrative, one that would enable her to make a deep connection, a connection she could not find in her relationship. Daan broke up with her lover and spent a year looking for another kind of love, for herself and for others. She also looked at the role her menstrual cycle played in all of this. Elle: Why did you choose to have your menstruation play such a prominent part in the book? Daan: I thought, my cycle is very important to how I feel, yet that’s something I supress. In every phase, I am another version of myself and not every version is allowed to be here. That then influences how I experience intimacy. If you think that you and your body have no right to be here, can you truly connect with another person? DAAN BORREL (b. 1990) is a freelance journalist. She writes for NRC Handelsblad, De Groene Amsterdammer and Elle, among other publications. Her book Sometimes Love Is This was longlisted for the Socrates Cup in 2018.

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

Daan Borrel

The Year of the New Story Insights into sexuality, the body and connection A year after her breakup, Daan Borrel takes stock. Has she really healed? Has she found the kind of connection for which she left her other relationship? In search for answers she takes a month to examine her diary entries from the year before. On the good days of her menstruation cycle she seems to think so: then she feels independent, excited and wild. But on her PMS days not. Then her stomach is one ball of tension. She feels alienated from herself, lonely and longs furiously for a child from her best friend. Does this difference come from her changing hormone levels or from the stories we reproduce and circulate?

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Memoir – 256 pages – January 2020 27

THOMAS RAP

"When we come here in the morning, there will be 20 guys waiting in front of the shop. Every day. It's not all about the haircuts, it's about being part of the thing that's happening here. "Men need a place to be men. That's why we started the shop." – excerpt from The Telegraph (October 2015)

BERTUS (b. 1974) grew up in the northern Netherlands. From the age of sixteen he lived on his own and led a tumultuous life. At a young age he developed a deep passion for the barber trade and for rock ‘n’ roll. LEEN (b. 1976) is from Brunssum and lived with his parents until he was twentyseven. He discovered entrepreneurship at a young age. After completing a barber’s course in Sittard, he opened branches for Kinki Kappers (‘Kinky Hairdressers’) at different locations around the Netherlands. FLOOR BOOGAART (b. 1979) is freelance copywriter, music journalist and interviewer. She came into contact with Leen and Bertus through rock ‘n’ roll music. Schorem is her debut.

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

Floor Boogaart

Schorem ......

A worldwide phenomenon: over 1.1 million followers on Facebook The insane story of the world’s most famous barbers In 2011 the down-to-earth entrepreneurs and polar opposites Bertus and Leen started barbershop Schorem. A place where men could be amongst themselves and where you could only choose between twelve different haircuts. A home away from home, as they call it. To their own surprise, their shop in Rotterdam grew to be an international sensation. They now make appearances around the world in halls packed with frenzied fans and have developed a highly successful pomade line called Reuzel, which is sold in 85 countries. Partly thanks to them, the barber’s trade is experiencing a global revival. In Schorem, the quirky craftsmen speak candidly about their turbulent youths, the wild adventures of their rock star existence, the art of ‘staying true to yourself’, depressions, stage fright, unbridled ambition, success and their friendship, which now runs twenty-five years. World rights: Thomas Rap – Biography – 320 pages – March 2020 29

CARGO

On Recollection: ‘Van Beek has written an excellent

debut in which he

couples an intriguing

plot full of unexpected twists with a surprising conclusion (…) Bravo!’ **** – Vrij Nederlands Detective & Thrillergids ‘What a brilliant debut. A thrilling rollercoaster ride that thunders along splendid

twists and turns towards its intriguing finish. Riveting to the very last page.’ – Noordhollands Dagblad ‘A formidable debut.’ – De Telegraaf

KASPER VAN BEEK (b. 1985) is a film and television producer. He is the cofounder of two production companies, through which he produces a wide range of national and international projects. He lives and works in Amsterdam. Van Beek made his debut as a writer with the enthusiastically received thriller Recollection (Vogelvrij), which was shortlisted for the Golden Noose (Gouden Strop) and the Shadow Prize (Schaduwprijs) and also translated into German (Goldmann).

COMMERCIAL FICTION

Kasper van Beek

The Hunger A house full of hidden cameras. A family filmed for an entire year – someone is watching… Liam Sandberg, his wife Evi and their daughter Yana return home to Amsterdam after a weekend away. On the coffee table lies an unfamiliar TV remote with a yellow post-it attached. Written on the paper is the word ‘PLAY’. When Liam clicks on the remote, their living room appears on the television, filmed from above. Evi walks through the image wearing a bathrobe. The image then divides into six independent streams. Each image displays a different part of the house, and Liam and Yana are also filmed. The top right corner shows a date and time, and when Liam fast forwards, the days fly past. The next day the police finds seventeen hidden cameras in Liam Sandberg’s house. Detective Isabella Neri doesn’t have a clue about what is going on. Who installed the cameras? And why did someone want to film the Sandberg family every minute of every day?

World rights: Cargo – Thriller – 288 pages – May 2020 31

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Kees van Beijnum 23 seconds ‘Just as my mother used to suppress the fact that a man lay on top of her in the room below, in the attic above I blocked out the thought that she lay under a man. Those were our positions. And we never spoke of them. Never’. The plot lines are so ingeniously interwoven and the ending so unexpected that you’ll be left gasping for air.’**** Knack ’23 seconds shows craftmanship. An ingenious thriller.’ – **** de Volkskrant ‘If anyone can bring Amsterdam to life in his books it’s Kees van Beijnum.’- JAN ‘A beautiful and powerful portrait of the Red Light District.’ - de Telegraaf A young writer named Anne returns to Amsterdam’s Red Light District twenty years after the notorious ‘hammer murder’ of her mother, a window prostitute born and raised in the city. She’s been given an advance by her publisher to write about her extraordinary childhood. Anne’s search for the roots of her existence raises more questions about her mother’s murder than it answers. Determined to unravel the mystery, she descends deeper and deeper into the dark world of her past. When she tries to contact the murderer, the consequences are explosive. The mystery’s unravelling is cleverly interwoven with the riveting story of a photographer named Hayo, Anne’s young love before he died. 23 seconds will grip readers right through to its stunning conclusion. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 392 pages – November 2019 – English sample translation & synopsis available - Selected by the Dutch Foundation for Literature as one of the 10 Books from Holland

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Peter Buwalda Otmar’s Sons Buwalda’s breath-taking masterpiece 125,000 copies sold Shortlisted for the Bookspot and Libris Literature Prize ‘Incredibly gripping, technically superb and intriguing. A narrative treasure.’***** NRC Handelsblad ‘A 1001 nights of reading pleasure. In grandiose, rich and imaginative language. Otmar’s Sons is intelligent, timeless, tantalising, witty and addictive.’***** De Standaard Irresistible. Morbid issues described in a cheerful, boyish and bold style; that contradiction is what makes Otmar’s Sons by Peter Buwalda a masterpiece.’ – De Groene Amsterdammer Otmar’s Sons tells the story of a young Shell employee named Ludwig Smit, who, after visiting the illustrious Johan Tromp on the Siberian island of Sakhalin, finds himself stranded there during a snow storm. It’s at that very moment, when investigative journalist Isabele Orthel hands Tromp the lid to a Pandora’s box, that his sensational career in the oil industry begins to teeter. Tromp – hedonist, alpha male, Shell’s crown prince and in all regards Ludwig’s exact opposite – misjudges his two visitors entirely.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Trilogy: Rowohlt (Germany), Actes Sud (France). Otmar’s Sons: Cappelen Damm (Norway), Politikens Forlag (Denmark), Jelenkor (Hungary) – Novel – 605 pages – March 2019 – English sample translation available – Selected by the Dutch Foundation for Literature as one of the 10 Books from Holland 33

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Ronald Giphart Time Enough Six interwoven lives, six men get together one last time before selling their brewery Nominated for the Libris Literature Prize 'Six men look back on their friendship in delicious anecdotes. Let yourself enjoy it, preferably when sat in a forest hut and with a beer in hand.' **** de Volkskrant 'Brewing beer is understanding life in Ronald Giphart’s warm new novel.' **** Elsevier 'A compelling novel with many successful asides and moments putting things into perspective, the tone is lighthearted and congenial.' - Het Parool 'Time Enough is an accomplished and at times masterful tale about the mysterious bond between a group of male friends.' – HP/ De Tijd Their friendship began during the countless evenings spent in their favourite pub, evenings which never ended. They became addicted to the good life and the camaraderie. They didn’t know how or what, but just that something memorable would happen each day. When the six men decided to start a brewery in a cellar in Utrecht in the 90s, they became, besides friends, business partners. Twenty-five years later they are now headed to a cabin in the woods in Germany to spend one last weekend together, before they sign the contract to sell the brewery. Over the weekend they reflect on friendship, ambition, on life and love. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 416 pages – September 2019 – English sample translation available

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Alma Mathijsen I Don’t Want to be a Dog ‘D’you want me to go now?’ you ask. No, don’ t go, do anything you like, but don’t go. ‘It’s up to you.’ Up to me again. That’s not what I want. I want you to stay, I want you to never leave, I want you to hold me and drink me up. ‘Maybe you should,’ I say, murdering everything as I say it. Heartbreak is all-encompassing, it thunders into our lives unannounced only to leave us cold and alone. But what if there is an escape from heartbreak? What if we don’t have to wallow in our own pain for months on end? If we don’t have to feel that desire for another anymore? If we no longer lie awake at night from the gnawing ache of missing them, if we no longer feel stabs of pain at seeing a couple in love? I Don’t Want to Be a Dog is a novella about a woman who decides to turn herself into a dog in order to be reunited with her ex-lover. She will be able to love him freely, whine when he leaves the room, snuggle up against him on the couch and growl at every intruder.

World rights: De Bezige Bij. Rights sold: C.H. Beck Verlag (Germany) – Novella – 149 pages – 14 November 2019 – English sample translation available 1

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Marcel Möring Amen ‘Like an iron fist around your throat’ de Morgen ‘In Amen, Marcel Möring reaches new heights. In language as poetic as it is assured, he guides the reader through Sam’s thoughts and feelings. An intensely beautiful, melancholic work.’ **** - Noordhollands Dagblad ‘This novel is the embodiment of Möring’s central themes – disconnection and homelessness. Sam’s despair is deeply compelling but also a literary achievement: Amen is a book of telling sentences that beg to be underlined.’ **** - de Volkskrant Victor, a cell biologist working for the Ministry of Public Health, has difficulty in coming to terms with the death of his wife during a carjack. Nightmares disrupt his experience of reality. He is allowed to stay at home to continue research into the influence of environmental pollution on the workings of the cell. To Victor, the outside world is full of acute danger. Initially, he is worried about the assumed lack of security at his son Igor’s school. He has the teacher followed because he does not trust him with children. Igor is expelled from school because, on his father’s instructions, he has carried a knife in order to defend himself. Subsequently, Victor barricades the two of them in their flat. He has bars installed in front of the windows, the doors are made burglar-proof, an air filter is installed. He locks his son in his room with a coded lock and only gives him food that is guaranteed safe. His extreme care and oppressive responsibility gradually turn into pure insanity. World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Luchterhand (Germany) – Novel – 208 pages – October 2019 – English sample translation available 1

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Koen Peeters The People healer Winner of the 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 ‘David van Reybrouck gave us monumental nonfiction with Congo, but because Koen Peeters reckoned the big Congo novel hadn’t been written yet, he did so himself. The result? A masterfully plotted, compelling narrative. A masterfully thoughtout, clear and illustration-speckled story within a story. Not as docu-fiction or as a post-modern gimmick, but rather, it seems, because that was the most honest way to tell something about a farmer’s son from Westhoek who, as a Jesuit, left for the former colony.’ **** – HUMO 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: Osburg Verlag (Germany), Perseus (Bulgaria) – Novel – 240 pages – February 2017 – English sample translation available 1

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Tommy Wieringa The Blessed Rita ‘His best book.’ ‘Masterpiece.’ 180.000 copies sold, Bookspot Critics’ and Readers’ Literature Prize .

‘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 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) American rights handled for De Bezige Bij by Inkwell – Novel – 286 pages – October 2017 – Full English & German translation available

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Onno Blom Young Rembrandt An immersive exploration of the mystery of young Rembrandt’s early years ‘There are still gaps in our knowledge of art’s great Everyman. How did a miller’s son “from the provinces” become Rembrandt, Blom asks. He finds his answer in the painter’s fortuitously timed upbringing in Leiden. All elements of Rembrandts pictures, Blom argues persuasively, were learnt there.’ Sunday Times ‘A captivating portrait of an artist as a young man and the city of Leiden as protagonist. It testifies to a great historical imagination.’ **** De Standaard Rembrandt’s life has always been an enigma. How did a miller’s son from a provincial Dutch town become the greatest artist in the world? With his formative years shrouded in mystery, the only remaining evidence of Rembrandt’s life as a young man is his work. Deeply rooted in the turbulent changes that his hometown was undergoing, Rembrandt’s early paintings tell a fascinating story of artistic evolution against the backdrop of the widening horizons of Leiden’s cultural and commercial life during the Dutch Golden Age. Leiden’s fortune facilitated Rembrandt’s. But who was that young man inventing himself as the city around him grew and prospered? How did Rembrandt become Rembrandt? To find out, Onno Blom immersed himself in the world, the country, the city and the house in which Rembrandt was born in 1606 and where he spent the first twenty-five years of his life. The result is a fascinating portrait of the artist as a young man. World rights: De Bezige Bij. Rights sold: Pushkin Press (UK, ANZ) – Biography – 277 pages, full color illustrations –– 5 September 2019 –– ‘Young Rembrandt’ exhibition in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England (27 February 2020 – 7 June 2020) – Full English translation available 39

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Bart van Loo The Burgundians 150,000 copies sold Shortlisted for the Libris History Prize Nominated for the Bookspot Prize Bart Van Loo takes the reader on a journey through a thousand years of European history, calling at cities including Dijon, Paris, Lille, Ghent, Bruges and Delft, up to the time when the Seventeen Provinces arose and the Burgundian Empire came to an end. He is unmatched in his ability to bring the powerfully evocative middle ages to life. His quest takes him to the emergence of the Dutch nation in the fifteenth century, and it turns out that the Low Countries were a Burgundian invention. The Burgundians is a whirlwind of a cultural history, an astonishing account of emerging cities, awakening individual-ism and dying knightly ideals, of schizophrenic kings, bold dukes and brilliant artists. While the Burgundian dukes forged the fragmented Low Countries into a unified whole through battles, marriages and reforms, they spurred artists like Klaas Sluter, Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden to produce unforgettable works. Along the way, Bart Van Loo’s equally thrilling and educational exploration of the middle ages develops into an impressive cultural history.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Head of Zeus (World English, pre-empt), C.H. Beck (Germany, pre-empt), Flammarion (France), Mondadori (Italy) – History – 608 pages, including footnotes, chronology, bibliography, maps, and two full-colour inserts – January 2019 - English sample translation and synopsis available

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Selma van de Perre My Name is Selma 50.000 copies sold since January The memoires of a 97-year-old Ravensbrück survivor. She loses just about everything: her parents, her sister, her name, her identity. She was seventeen when WWII broke out. Until then, being Jewish had never played a large role in her life, however it suddenly became a question of life or death. Though she was summoned to register for a work camp in 1942, she managed to evade it. She joined the resistance: under the pseudonym Margareta van der Kuit, Marga for short, she forged documents and delivered them throughout the entire country. She escaped the Nazis on multiple occasions, but in July of 1944 she was betrayed and transported via Camp Vught to Ravensbrück. Unlike her sister and parents, she survived the horrors of the camp. During that time no one knew that she was Jewish, and no one knew her real name. It was only after the war that she dared say it again: My name is Selma.

World rights: Thomas Rap - Rights sold: Transworld (UK + ANZ, pre-empt), Scribner (US+ Canada pre-empt), Germany (BTB-Verlag, pre-empt), Leduc (France) Mondadori (Italy, pre-empt), Matar (Israel), Wielka Litera (Poland) and Tammi (Finland) – Memoir – 256 pages – January 2020 – English sample translation available – Selected by the Dutch Foundation for Literature for Quality Non-Fiction from Holland 41

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Chris de Stoop When the Water Breaks A deeply humane story of the fault line that migration represents, zooming in on one boat, one group, one family. ‘A book full of powerful stories. De Stoop convincingly shows us that migration is not just a one-time action but a fundamental break.’ – Nederlands Dagblad ‘De Stoop is an expert in this beautiful genre where literature and journalism intersect […] it is a touching, empathic book, and numerous images and sentences will stay with you’ – De Groene Amsterdammer This is the true story of a fisherman and his daughter, who fled their native country of Vietnam thirty years ago. Hung crossed the sea in his overpopulated little fishing boat and barely survived. He started a new life in a Belgian village. Years later, his daughter Quyen opens a successful restaurant, but questions her identity. It is also the story of the dozens of other travellers from that same boat, with whom Hung and his family bobbed about on the sea—a small community of interlinked lives, brought together by one decisive moment. Not everyone survived. Some felt lost afterwards. Others became doctors, engineers, bankers or entrepreneurs. A story of sacrifice, deceit, conflict, fear, love and homesickness, told in a relatable style by Chris de Stoop, who follows the family for years, having spoken to dozens of those who travelled with them. With so many parallels to the world of today, this books shines a humane light on the problematic issues surrounding the ships full of refugees refused entry by European countries today. World rights: De Bezige Bij - Rights sold: Christian Bourgois (France) – Literary non-fiction – 258 pages – September 2018

PREVIEW

TO COME IN JUNE 2020 !

Stefan Buijsman Advancing Intelligence Stefan Buijsman conquered the world with Pluses and Minuses, the rights of which have been sold in more than twenty countries. This summer we will publish his new book, AI: Advancing Intelligence, in which Buijsman will take us into the world of artificial intelligence. What is it? What can it accomplish? And should we fear it? STEFAN BUIJSMAN (b.

1995) gained a masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in philosophy in Leiden at the age of eighteen, after which he moved to Sweden to work on a PhD. Within eighteen months he gained his doctorate, making him one of the youngest ever PhDs. He is currently studying the philosophy of mathematics as a post-doctoral researcher. Along with Govrien Oldenburger he is the author of the childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book The Kingdom of Sums (2018). His debut title for adults, Pluses and Minuses, made a big splash at home and abroad and has been sold in twenty territories. 43

ABOUT DE BEZIGE BIJ

De Bezige Bij (The Busy Bee) is one of the leading literary publishers in the Netherlands for both Dutch and translated literature, fiction, and non-fiction. De Bezige Bij has its roots in the Dutch resistance during World War II, when a group of students from Utrecht, headed by Geert Lubberhuizen, printed a range of publications to finance their resistant movement. Officially established on 12 December 1944, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;de Bijâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; has since evolved into one of the leading literary publishers in the Netherlands and Flanders, covering both homegrown and translated fiction and non-fiction. Nowadays De Bezige Bij publishes a wide range of Dutch fiction: from the works of Harry Mulisch, Peter Buwalda, Stefan Hertmans and Cees Nooteboom, to the prose and poetry of Ramsey Nasr, and from the novels of Tommy Wieringa and Margriet de Moor to the varied work of Hugo Claus and Gerrit Komrij. The same applies to our list of translated literary fiction, which consists of the works of Philip Roth, Paolo Giordano, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Donna Tartt, Khaled Hosseini, Philippe Claudel, Paolo Cognetti, Amos Oz, Toni Morrison, A.M. Homes, Albert Camus, Marcel Proust and Vladimir Nabokov amongst many others. De Bezige Bij also manifests itself as publisher of non-fiction by leading Dutch and international authors. Our authors include David Van Reybrouck, Bart Van Loo, Paul Verhaeghe, Svetlana Alexijevitsj, Karen Armstrong, Philipp Blom, Stephen Fry, Yuval Noah Harari, Helen Macdonald, Siddharta Mukherjee, David Remnick, Oliver Sacks, and Edmund de Waal.

De Bezige Bij consists of the following lists: 1. De Bezige Bij: literary and upmarket fiction and non-fiction 2. Thomas Rap: upmarket fiction and non-fiction, including books on comedy, sports and cookery books 3. Cargo: crime fiction, thrillers, commercial fiction and non-fiction

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

Mark Beumer Director De Bezige Bij; Thomas Rap; Cargo

Francien Schuursma Publisher De Bezige Bij

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

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

Arend Hosman Publisher Thomas Rap

Marjolein Schurink Publisher Cargo

Catharina Schilder Editor Thomas Rap

Saartje Schwachöfer Editor Thomas Rap

Chris Kooi Editor De Bezige Bij; Cargo

Mariska Kortie Editor non-fiction De Bezige Bij

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

Uta Matten Rights manager De Bezige Bij; Thomas Rap; Cargo

T HOM A S R AP

CARGO

The 75th anniversary of De Bezige Bij: 12 December 2019 Authors and employees in the library of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Photo: Stephan Vanfleteren