De Bezige Bij Foreign Rights Guide, Autumn 2020

De Bezige Bij The Busy Bee Foreign Rights Guide Autumn 2020

DE BEZIGE BIJ, THOMAS RAP & CARGO

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

FOREIGN RIGHTS GUIDE FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR 2020 NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION David Van Reybrouck Revolusi ..................................................................................2 Stefan Buijsman AI: Advancing Intelligence ....................................................6 Paul Verhaeghe Keep Your Distance, Hold Me Close .....................................8 Chris de Stoop The Book of Daniel ..............................................................10 Peter Bos Connected .............................................................................12 Andreas Jonkers And Then They Found My Father .......................................14 Raoul de Jong Jaguar Man ...........................................................................16 Miriam Rasch Friction: Ethics in Times of Dataism ...................................18 Haroon Ali Half .......................................................................................20 Stefan Vanfleteren Diary of a Photographer .......................................................22 Arthur van den Boogaard Cruyff: The Story of a Football Player ................................24

Stefan Hertmans Ernest van der Kwast Jeroen Olyslaegers Johan de Boose Kaweh Modiri Alma Mathijsen Mathijs Deen

NEW LITERARY FICTION The Ascent............................................................................26 Ilyas ......................................................................................28 Wild Woman ........................................................................30 Lightning Stone ....................................................................32 Mitra .....................................................................................34 Save the Summer ..................................................................36 The Lightship .......................................................................38

Erwin Mortier

MODERN CLASSICS Marcel...................................................................................40

Corine Hartman

NEW COMMERCIAL FICTION In Free Fall ...........................................................................42

Peter Buwalda Ewoud Kieft Erwin Mortier

SUCCESSFUL TITLES FICTION Otmar’s Sons ........................................................................44 The Imperfected ...................................................................45 The Immaculate ....................................................................46

Jan Caeyers Sinan Çankaya Bart Van Loo Selma van de Perre

SUCCESSFUL TITLES NON-FICTION Beethoven .............................................................................47 My Innumerable Identities ...................................................48 The Burgundians ..................................................................49 My Name is Selma ...............................................................50 1

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

De Bezige Bij proudly presents the highly anticipated new book by David Van Reybrouck, author of Congo

OVER 500,000 COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE

‘Magnificent.’ – The New York Times ‘Masterpiece.’ – The Independent ‘Monumental. Congo reunites the best tradition of history and journalism.’ – Der Spiegel ‘Once opened, an abyss emerges in this book, from which rises a

peak of historiography and documentary literature. For Belgium the book of the century, for Europe the book of the decade.’

– Peter Sloterdijk, Süddeutsche Zeitung

‘More thrilling than a novel.’

- NRC Handelsblad 2

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

David Van Reybrouck

Revolusi Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World To be published on Thursday 26 November

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

CONTEXT REVOLUSI: Van Reybrouck has spent the past five years working on his monumental book Revolusi. He has interviewed almost two hundred people: the last living eyewitnesses to the war of independence, in Indonesian rest homes, on remote islands, and in Japanese megacities. His research has also brought many new stories to light in the Netherlands. Van Reybrouck has woven together this multiplicity of perspectives and memories into a gripping story of the birth of modern Indonesia. His vivid narrative shows how a new world emerged: in blood, pain, and hope.

DAVID VAN REYBROUCK (born 1971) is a cultural historian, archaeologist, and author of nonfiction, plays, and poetry. His most successful book has been Congo: A History, awarded the Libris History Prize 2010, the AKO Literature Prize 2010, and the Prix MĂŠdicis 2012. His essay A Plea for Populism won the Jan Hanlo Essay Prize 2009 and the Flemish Cultural Prize for Criticism and Essays (2009). For Against Elections: The Case for Democracy (2014, English-language edition 2018), he received the HenriĂŤtte Roland Holst Prize. His essay Zinc, written for Dutch Book Week in 2016, was awarded the European Book Prize. In 2014 he received the prestigious international Gouden Ganzenveer prize in recognition of his oeuvre. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

4

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

David Van Reybrouck

Revolusi Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World Indonesia’s struggle for independence, which reached its climax in the 1940s, has long been regarded as a conflict between the colonial power, the Netherlands, and the colonized Dutch East Indies. But in fact, it belonged to world history. David Van Reybrouck’s Revolusi is the first book to go beyond the national perspective and demonstrate the conflict’s global significance.

Indonesia was the first country to declare independence after WWII. Once the Japanese occupation had been ended, young rebels engaged in armed resistance against any new form of domination. British, Australian, and above all Dutch troops were sent to restore order and keep the peace, but instead their presence ignited the first modern war of decolonization. That struggle inspired independence movements in Asia, Africa, and the Arab world, especially when Indonesia organized the legendary Bandung Conference in 1955, the first global conference without the West. The whole world had become involved with the Revolusi, and the whole world was changed by it.

World rights excluding World English: De Bezige Bij. World English rights: Janklow & Nesbit – History – Many option publishers – 656 pages – 26 November 2020 cover design: Tim Bisschop – author photo: Frank Ruiter Dutch manuscript and English sample translation available on 26 November 2020

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Press on AI: ‘Wunderkind Buijsman absolutely fulfils his promise to give the reader a

realistic picture of artificial intelligence.’

– Het Financiële Dagblad Press on Pluses and minuses: ‘An illuminating history of mathematics.

Buijsman’s enjoyable survey makes a convincing argument that understanding these basics will provide the tools necessary to better evaluate the modern world’s information onslaught.’ – Publishers Weekly ‘A welcome addition to the math-for-lay readers genre, with

the hope for more to come.’ – Kirkus Reviews ‘A true bible, which shows us that math hides in unexpected corners of our lives.’ – Science & Vie Junior STEFAN BUIJSMAN (b. 1995) received a master’s degree in philosophy in Leiden at the age of eighteen, after which he moved to Sweden to begin a PhD. Within eighteen months, instead of the usual four years, he received his doctorate, making him one of the youngest ever PhDs. He is currently studying the philosophy of mathematics as a postdoctoral researcher. His book Pluses and Minuses (2018) is being translated into more than thirteen languages, including by Penguin in the United States.

6

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Stefan Buijsman

AI: Advancing Intelligence A young genius makes artificial intelligence understandable for everyone Facial recognition, self-driving cars, algorithmic fake news, Tinder matches, deep fakes and job interviews with a computer program. Whether we want it or not: we are being surrounded with artificial intelligence. But what does that mean? Should we be concerned about a future full of computers that are smarter than us?

For answers, Stefan Buijsman dives into the world of artificial intelligence. From the first chatbot in the sixties, to the computers that sent airplanes crashing in the nineties to the latest self-driving cars, he lets us see how we use algorithms, how they actually work and how limited those programs are. In AI: Advancing Intelligence Buijsman takes us along on a disarmingly accessible tour through all the advantages and pitfalls of artificial intelligence. The promises and dangers of this technology depend entirely on us.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Philosophy, Science – Rights sold: C. H. Beck Verlag (Germany) – many option publishers –222 pages – June 2020 English synopsis available

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

On earlier work: ‘Verhaeghe brilliantly captures the long-term impact that living in a profit-obsessed society has had on our psychology. An author

excellent book.’ – Hanif Kureishi,

Excerpt:

‘Our lives are the stories of successful and unsuccessful touches, and our skin is the most underestimated, most forgotten sensory story.

Fortunately, we have the digital means to hear and see one another – but not to smell, feel and cuddle each other. When that is no longer possible, fear sets in.’

PAUL VERHAEGHE (b. 1955) is a Doctor of Clinical Psychology and a professor at the University of Ghent, Belgium. He made his breakthrough to a general and international readership with Love in a Time of Loneliness (1998) and again reached a large global audience with The End of Psychotherapy (2009), What About Me? (2012), Says Who? (2015) and Intimacy (2018).

8

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Paul Verhaeghe

Keep Your Distance, Hold Me Close An incisive analysis of the meaning of the coronavirus crisis The world has been turned upside down. The coronavirus crisis is affecting everyone, and we all have to adapt to a society we have never seen before. That makes us anxious and uncertain. Paul Verhaeghe situates the causes and consequences of the pandemic within a broader context. He argues that we must use this crisis to make profoundly different choices: unbridled growth is no longer justifiable. In which direction do we want to take our economy? How should we relate to each other, to animals, to the environment? At the same time, he evaluates the impact of the crisis at an individual level. What is the effect of this ‘new normal’ on our wellbeing? How can we handle loneliness and uncertainty, and can we go on without being touched? Verhaeghe is able to link society and the individual like no other. He shows what we know, what we should fear, what we can hope for and what we can do. His message is hopeful: we can emerge from this crisis better than before.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Psychology – 134 pages – July 2020 – German sample translation available

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Praise: ‘Moral dilemmas concerning guilt and retribution plague De Stoop (…) A book that you cannot

stop reading and

that will make your blood run cold. This magisterial book of international allure begs

for a film adaptation

by the brothers Dardenne.’ ***** – De Morgen ‘A pitchperfect

book.’ – HUMO

Press on This Is My Farm:

monumental book with international appeal.’***** – De Morgen ‘An impactful book that describes the loss of farming life as a cultural battle that affects everyone.’ – ‘Chris de Stoop wrote a

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung CHRIS DE STOOP (b. 1958) came to fame as the author of much-discussed non-fiction such as his debut They Are So Sweet, Sir (1992), about a gang of women traffickers. His work has been awarded with numerous journalistic and literary prizes. The bestseller This Is My Farm (2015, over 50,000 copies sold), about the loss of the farming way of life, was crowned with the Confituur Independent Booksellers Prize and sold to Germany, France and China. When the Water Breaks (2018) will be published in French

by Christian Bourgois éditeur.

10

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Chris de Stoop

The Book of Daniel An exercise in empathy that will linger in readers’ minds long after the final page

In a remote corner of Belgium, where the countryside still remains in some form, an old farmhouse belonging to Chris de Stoop’s uncle Daniel burns to the ground. Among the rubble, the old farmer’s body is found. In the weeks that follow, the authorities round up a youth gang, suspected of Daniel’s murder.

De Stoop, shocked by his uncle’s death, speaks on the family’s behalf in the lawsuit that follows. After the trial, he even goes a step further: he confronts the young perpetrators.

In The Book of Daniel, he describes in captivating fashion how two different worlds come together. He seeks justice for an old farmer who nobody wants to defend, but also unravels what is brewing among street youth who do not seem to give a damn about anything or anyone.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Non-fiction – Option publisher: Christian Bourgois éditeur (France) –254 pages – September 2020 – English sample translation available

THOMAS RAP

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Excerpt: ‘Through this book, I want to show how our dependence on one another is rooted in our biology: our origin, our hormones, our brain. Dependence is a fundamentally human characteristic. From our conception to our death, we are dependent on the care of others. That connects us to one another. I am arguing for a reassessment of this naturally connected human being.

Our hormonal system, the result of millions of years of evolution, enables this connection, which is something to treasure. Let us do so, before we forget how.’

PETER BOS (b. 1983) (b. 1983) works as an associate professor of pedagogical sciences at the University of Leiden. He has been conducting research into how social relationships are anchored in our biological system. In his book he shows that people are not naturally self-reliant and independent, but that care for each other and dependence on each other are a biological necessity.

12

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Peter Bos

Connected The biology of human relationships

Why people behave as they do What role do hormones play in the relationship between parents and children, between lovers, and in the workplace? What are the consequences for our biological systems when relationships are disrupted? And perhaps the biggest question: what does this all say about us, humans? For people, relationships are a biological necessity. And in times of crisis that necessity only grows. From early on in human evolutionary history, hormones have been involved in dealing with and feeling connectedness with our fellow humans.

In Connected, scientist Peter Bos explains how our biological system facilitates connection between people.

World rights: Thomas Rap – Popular Science – 318 pages – October 2020 – English sample translation available 13

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Excerpt: ‘In the train I had wondered how we might greet each other, but he was already reaching for my hand: Hans. My father had a beard, I saw, and a mocking look. His hat was reversible, and then changed colour, he showed me.

We walked out of the spacious hall, over the sunny quay, along the river, to his street. He opened a green door and ran up the steep steps to his floor. When we then came up, I saw that all the walls had been written on with black marker pen.

Texts that I could not follow, with quick drawings of people and animals beside them.’

Praise: ‘A loving reconstruction of a life, a moving search for a father and fatherhood. Andreas Jonkers writes carefully and with restraint.’ – Marjolijn van Heemstra, author

ANDREAS JONKERS (b. 1990) studied Dutch literature. He worked for online magazines such as Hard//hoofd and various publishing houses. Since its foundation, he has worked for The Correspondent, a daily online newspaper, first as copy editor, now as publisher of their books.

14

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Andreas Jonkers

And Then They Found My Father Becoming a father when you have never had one Andreas Jonkers saw his father exactly three times: once alive, once at his father’s wake, and once at the burial. His father’s body displayed 42 knife wounds when it was found on an embankment in East Amsterdam.

Andreas grew up, like so many other children, without a father. He never felt the need to know who his father was, why he met his end in such a gruesome way and who did it. Until he had his own child.

Then the questions became more pressing than ever. What happened to his father? What does being a father actually mean?

And Then They Found My Father is a revealing and compelling story about the death of a father, the birth of a son and the question of what it means to grow up without a father.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Memoir – 192 pages – October 2020 – English sample translation available

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Excerpt: ‘For twenty-seven years I was the only brown member of an entirely white family. I had a mother, three aunts, an uncle, six cousins, a grandpa and a grandma, and a parade of ancestors from the rural north of the Netherlands, in farmers’ smocks and traditional jewelry, and that was beautiful and wonderful enough, since that was what life had given me as a gift. Until I got an e-mail on 10 December 2011: I AM SEARCHING FOR MY SON RAOUL DE JONG.’ On The Greatness of It All: ‘De Jong strips traveling down to its barest form to deliver a book that bubbles with

charm and vitality.’— Bob

den Uyl Prize jury report

RAOUL DE JONG (b. 1984) wrote for various daily and weekly newspapers and has published five books. He was awarded the Dick Scherpenzeel Prize for his debut. The Greatness of It All, which was distinguished with the Best Rotterdam Book award and an honourable mention from the Bob den Uyl Prize, was published in 2013.

16

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Raoul de Jong

Jaguar Man A personal quest for the power of the jaguar and its meaning for Surinam At the age of twenty-eight, author Raoul de Jong meets his Surinamese father for the first time. They speak alike, move alike and both believe in wonders. Then Raoul’s father tells him a story that lingers in his memory: one of his ancestors, a medicine man, could transform himself into a jaguar. Gripped by this mystery, Raoul decides to investigate in Surinam.

The history of the former Dutch colony is one of darkness and slavery, but those who search carefully will also find a great deal of hope and vitality. Raoul is living proof: his ancestors somehow managed to survive. During this quest, in which he acquaints himself with Surinamese writers, thinkers and resistance heroes, he discovers that the power of the jaguar was essential for the country, and comes to understand how much everyone can learn from it.

In Jaguar Man, written as an adventure novel, Raoul de Jong presents a beautiful ode to the land of his father.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Non-fiction – 240 pages – November 2020

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Press:

‘Mind-expandingly

multi-faceted. Poetic.’ –

NRC Handelsblad ‘A salient

argument for more friction between people

and algorithms’ **** – de Volkskrant

‘Here is an essayist who playfully

combines philosophical, literary and political perspectives. Rasch turns many things on their heads and in a constantly lively tone.’ **** – Trouw

MIRIAM RASCH works as a researcher and teacher for the Institute of Network Culture at Amsterdam’s polytechnic university. She studied literature and philosophy. In 2015 she won the Jan Hanlo Essay Prize. Her book Swimming in the Ocean: Dispatches from a Post-Digital World (2017) was published to critical acclaim and shortlisted for the 2018 Socrates Cup philosophy prize.

18

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Miriam Rasch

Friction Ethics in Times of Dataism Provocative investigation into the extent to which the world can be captured in data Dataism is the belief that everything can be translated into data. Data secure the world and make it manageable. But for who and with what objective?

The ethical dilemmas that surround data are often reduced to issues such as privacy and regulation, while the underlying assumptions are rarely ever discussed. Can humans be understood as algorithms? What happens to the things that can’t be captured in data? And why is a dataistic future presented as inevitable?

Against the ideal of an automated world that holds us captive in an invisible net, Miriam Rasch proposes a revaluation of friction. Friction is a formidable strategy from those who strive for emancipation or actively resist the demand for transparency and constant communication. Rasch opens the path toward ‘de-automation’ as a possibility for allowing words and things to shine anew. In times of dataism, how can we continue to tell our own story?

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Philosophy – 238 pages – May 2020 – English sample translation available – Selected by the Dutch Foundation for Literature for Quality Non-Fiction from Holland

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Praise: ‘Ali stirringly shows how the westernised son is different from his traditional father. A classic clash between father and son.

He does not mince words when confronting his father with his failure to become closer to his son. Those are dazzling,

crackling confrontations. They make the book even more urgent.’ - Het Parool ‘A plea

for empathy and against rigidity.’ - Trouw

Excerpt (letter from the author to his brother): ‘I grew up in a different Netherlands from the one you did, so I naturally view my Pakistani roots differently. (…) I took a two-month-long journey through Pakistan, from north to south, visiting Dad’s family. Things happened there that Dad would rather hide from you. But I want to share those experiences with you, so that you can form your own opinion about our divided fatherland, the land that is making a greater mark on your life than it did on mine.’

HAROON ALI (b. 1983) holds a Master’s degree in social psychology and journalism. Ali is a journalist and writes about media, culture and travel. He lives in Amsterdam. Half is his debut.

20

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Haroon Ali

Half Haroon Ali travelled through Pakistan to come to terms with his bi-cultural identity and to repair the relationship with his father.

In an open-hearted letter to his little brother, Haroon speaks about his intertwined roots, the absence of their father and the fraught journey he made through his forgotten motherland, from north to south. What traces of his family history are left there? And what kind of country does he find in the twenty-first century?

Haroon travels through a minefield of clashing identities, suffocating dogmas and untenable traditions. He fights for the acceptance of his orientation and modern lifestyle, but nevertheless yearns for his father’s approval and love. Will he ever receive it?

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Non-fiction – 208 pages – September 2020 – English sample translation available

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Work by Stephan Vanfleteren STEPHAN VANFLETEREN (b. 1969) is a renowned photographer. His work has received numerous awards, including from World Press Photo. In 2012 he received the National Portrait Prize for a photo of Rem Koolhaas. Alongside countless expositions, various publications have appeared from his hand; Belgicum is considered one of the most important books in the history of Belgian photography.

22

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Stephan Vanfleteren

Diary of a Photographer Coronawalks

On 13 March 2020, at exactly the moment the world ground to a halt, Stephan Vanfleteren began to walk.

He walked at twilight, often for hours at a time. He saw spring arrive. ‘Everything is like always.

And yet, you are now looking closer.

You see that the winter storms have changed the beach. That the tide flows back differently to the sea.

You imagine enlarged viruses in the crowns of the snapped trees.’

Gradually he comes to see everything within 15 kilometres of his house, and he extends his range.

Along the way he takes pictures, but also keeps a written diary. He notes down what he sees, feels and contemplates. After two and a half months he realizes that the silence is gone. Stephan Vanfleteren ends his diary a few weeks later, as the summer begins. Diary of a Photographer records the most transformative months in recent history.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Corona memoir – 168 pages – July 2020

THOMAS RAP

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Praise: ‘Arthur van den Boogaard shows how Cruyff, growing up in what was then a footballing backwater, developed into the best (and most interesting) player in the world.

Van den Boogaard knows how to tell a story. He turns his interviews and research into vivid scenes. By choosing the most telling episodes from Cruyff’s life, he shows the reader who he was: a thinker about football who acted as an on-field dictator to get his teams to play exactly as he wanted.

The book is packed with material that will be new even to Cruyff connoisseurs. I had no idea that Cruyff suffered from a fear of losing so acute that he had severe headaches before and after a big matches, and early in his career sometimes avoided playing altogether. Van den Boogaard also describes the dubious wartime past of his father-in-law (and substitute fatherfigure) Cor Coster, a man who shared Cruyff’s obsession with money and guided his career accordingly.

In short, this very well-written book is a marvellous opportunity finally to introduce readers to football’s most interesting character.”

- Simon Kuper, author ARTHUR VAN DEN BOOGAARD (b.

1969) is a writer, journalist and literary critic. For the past fifteen years he has written weekly reviews of sports books for the newspaper Het Parool. He also published a leading anthology titled Sport, and compiled the best stories from cycling literature. In 2014, This Is How We Played: The Netherlands in Fourteen Legendary Football Matches was published. His most recent book, Cruyff: The Story of a Footballer, was published in October 2019 to great critical acclaim.

24

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Arthur van den Boogaard

Cruyff The Story of a Football Player On Sunday, 13th May 1984, Johan Cruyff played his final match. He waved goodbye in a jersey from Feyenoord Rotterdam, with whom he had won the national championship in the 1983/84 season. Cruyff was no longer welcome at Ajax Amsterdam, the club of his youth, where his mother once worked as a cleaner and where he had grown up.

Arthur van den Boogaard reconstructs that turbulent last season, but also describes Cruyff’s football career that came before.

He spoke with countless people who were directly involved – family, friends, trainers, fellow footballers and physical therapists – about Cruyff’s domination as footballer, about his doubts and vulnerability, about the role of his entourage and the media, and about his unique perspective on football. In Cruyff: The Story of a Football Player, readers come closer to the man and the footballer Johan Cruyff than ever before.

World rights: Thomas Rap – Biography – 272 pages – October 2019 25

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Praise: ‘You can read The Ascent as the history of a collaborator. As a

masterly storyteller Hertmans sketches with an assured style, in the first place, a fascinating family portrait.’ – de Tijd ‘The Ascent is a brilliant

docudrama from the

craftsman who previously managed to fuse fact, fiction and autobiography into gold in War and Turpentine and The Convert.’ – Humo ‘Hertmans is at times the cool recorder, then at others the savvy novelist who etches events onto our retinas with a nonchalant bravura, a skilled storyteller who knows nearly

every trick of the trade.’ – de Morgen STEFAN HERTMANS (b. 1951) is the author of novels, story collections, essays and poetry. His work has won many awards, including the Multatuli Prize, the F. Bordewijk Prize, and the AKO Literature Prize. His novel War and Turpentine was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize in 2017. War and Turpentine sold 250,000 copies and has been published in twenty-four languages. His novel The Convert garnered praise from all sides. It was published in 2016, and won the E. du Perron Prize in 2017. In 2019 Hertmans won the Constantijn Huygens Prize for his oeuvre. Publishing house Gallimard (France) is preparing collections of both Hertmans’ essays and poetry.

26

NEW LITERARY FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Stefan Hertmans

The Ascent 1

Layer by layer, Hertmans unravels not only the secrets of a house, which once belonged to a WWII criminal, but also the marital drama that took place there In the summer of 1979, a house in Ghent caught Stefan Hertmans’ attention. The drooping wisteria was dusty, but the scent struck him deeply and took him back to his youth. He bought the property on a whim. It was only after selling the house twenty years later that he was confronted with what happened there during WWII. It was a bewildering discovery that the previous Flemish owner had been a SS member. ‘It is incomprehensible,’ Hertmans writes, ‘that everything that I could have already known or at least suspected, I overlooked.’ Gradually, the man he hopes to understand comes into view, as well as his Dutch pacifist wife and children.

Hertmans speaks with relatives, consults archives, finds intimate documents.

In his memories, he wanders again through all the rooms in which he lived for so long.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – Rights sold: Diogenes (Switzerland) – Many option publishers – Novel – 412 pages – September 2020 – English sample translation available

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Press on previous work: ‘Van der Kwast tells his multigenerational tale with great sensitivity, demonstrating through powerful

observations the long-term effect of one person’s decision upon others throughout generations. A

delightful read’ – Kirkus Reviews ‘This is already the funniest

and most moving

book that I have read this year. Whoever was wondering where the Dutch

Salman Rushdie was hiding, or

even the Dutch Aravind Adiga, is given the answer with Mama Tandoori.’ – Herman Koch, author of The Dinner ‘Exceptionally

beautiful novel that will convert

even the most level-headed of sceptics to trust in true love..’

—Elle ERNEST VAN DER KWAST (b. 1981) was born in Mumbai, India. He made his breakthrough with the novel Mama Tandoori (2010), which became a bestseller with more than 100,000 copies sold. His novella Giovanna’s Navel (2012) was followed by The Ice-Cream Makers (2015), a novel that has been translated in seven countries. The book also won the Dioraphte Youth Literature Prize. From 2016 to 2017, Van der Kwast was the Writer in Residence at the VU University in Amsterdam. In that capacity he interviewed refugee students about their motives for living in the Netherlands, which resulted in the book Your Future Is My Future (2017).

28

NEW LITERARY FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Ernest van der Kwast

Ilyas A novel about some of the most urgent questions of our time: Should you help strangers? And can you make a difference in their lives?

A new Rembrandt has been discovered, a portrait of an unknown young man. Conservator Peter Lindke disagrees with the ascription.

After a television appearance in which he, among other things, declares that the man’s collar could never have been painted by Rembrant, he is fired. At home he not only finds out that his marriage is in a crisis, but also that his cleaning lady has major problems.

He takes her under his wing and manages to get her life back on track. However, when she shows up with Ilyas, a boy with the face of a tortured poet and thirty thousand euros in debt, Peter Lindke hesitates. Should he also help out Ilyas – and will that give his life meaning? Or is he better off saving his marriage?

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – Rights sold: btb-Verlag (Germany) –264 pages October 2020 – English sample translation available

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Press on WILL: ‘Olyslaegers, whose grandfather was a Nazi collaborator, is masterly in probing the moral quandaries of collaboration.

This is historical

fiction at its best: provocative,

uncomfortable and illuminating.’ – The Times ‘A vital and endlessly

frightening question: who

among us would actually risk our lives or livelihoods for the sake of principle, or a fellow citizen?’ – The Guardian ‘Olyslaegers throws our polarised times into sharp

relief.’ – Observer ‘More than a meeting with history, this is a meeting

with ourselves.’ – Livres Hebdo JEROEN OLYSLAEGERS (b. 1967) is a Flemish author and playwright. His novels are lauded for their stylistic control, expressive style and narrative strength. WILL (2016) won four major prizes in the Netherlands and Flanders and is being translated into eight languages. Also known for his social engagement both inside and outside of literary circles, he was awarded the Ark Prize for Free Speech in 2014. He currently lives in Antwerp, in a street where the police helped the Nazis round up Jewish people during WWII. 30

NEW LITERARY FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Jeroen Olyslaegers

Wild Woman Full of scents, court jesters and the blind, merchants and usurers, profiteers and swindlers, midwives, cartographers, painters, printers and astrologists, in which desire and selfdeceit dance through the streets of Antwerp Bear has lost three wives in childbirth. His third partner bore him a child before dying, the other two died with a child in their belly.

After so much loss he considers himself cursed. From Amsterdam, Bear calls on God to unravel the supposed curse. He looks back at his final years in 16th-century Antwerp, the city he fled.

The city overflows with trade and money, but a great unrest prevails as well. Bear witnesses the escalating tension up close in his tavern where free thoughts and sweet wine flow, and where a secret society hatches plans. Everything is primed when, thanks to reckless world conquerors, a wild woman arrives in his tavern. Wild Woman is a dazzling, monumental novel about Antwerp in the 16th century: a raging city at a turning point in her history.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – Many option publishers – 415 pages – December 2020 – English sample translation available

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Praise: ‘His style resonates wonderfully in Lightning Stone.’**** – NRC Handelsblad ‘Writing

with

an

autobiographical,

warm

wonderfully well for De Boose in this rich novel.

style

goes

Superb

passages.’ – de Morgen ‘Witty, undeniably special, excellent, tragic, hallucinatory, mythical proportions.’ - De Groene Amsterdammer On Cursed Wood: ‘A

great Russian writer lurks in the soul of Johan

de Boose. The plot of Cursed Wood is as hilarious as it is

brilliant.’ – Stefan Hertmans, author of War and Turpentine and The Convert JOHAN DE BOOSE (b. 1962) is a Flemish author and playwright. His work has been crowned with the Halewijn Prize, the Henriette Roland Holst Prize and the Cutting Edge Award. In addition to writing, he also performs his own scripts. His novel Cursed Wood was published in 2018, and will be published next year in Germany by btb Selection. De Boose is a Slavist and travels regularly to the far corners of the globe.

32

NEW LITERARY FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Johan de Boose

Lightning Stone A writer’s road trip in the footsteps of his father ‘The taxi driver, an albino man with a voice like a gong, is bringing me three miles closer to my destination.

“Welcome to Hell Paso!” he says.

“What babe is waiting for you here?”

“My father,” I answer.’

With only himself as company, Johan de Boose travels straight across the United States. He is on his way to the grave of his father, an amateur physicist who lies buried in one of the oldest landscapes on Earth, in Utah. Halfway there, he makes a stop in Gardner, the final resting place of his best friend and brother-in-law, Gary. While traveling Johan sifts through recollections in an attempt to keep the memories of his departed loved ones alive. The result is a wonderfully colourful portrait of his remarkable father, who travelled the world in his thoughts, but in fact rarely left his study.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 274 pages – August 2020 – English sample translation available

THOMAS RAP

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Excerpt:

‘As a child I regularly travelled with my mother to cities such as Bonn, Berlin, Hamburg and Paris to visit old friends and cellmates of my sister who, when my mother was pregnant with me, was executed in Iran. At night, when they thought I was asleep, they would tell each other about the last months, days and hours of her life.

They spoke about it like a puzzle that still had not been solved. I listened to their stories about the sister I had never known and whose death had cast a dramatic shadow over my life. The stories that I secretly overheard at night evoked images I could not get out of my head, even long after we had returned home.’

KAWEH MODIRI (b. 1982) is a filmmaker and writer. He made his debut in 2012 with the novel Mr Sadek and the Others. In 2016, his feature film Bodkin Ras premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize. Alongside the novel, Modiri also made the film Mitra, which will soon be released internationally.

34

NEW LITERARY FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Kaweh Modiri

Mitra Mitra was inspired by true events and named after Modiri’s sister, who was executed in Iran in 1981, when the author’s mother was pregnant with him After the execution of her daughter Mitra in Iran in 1981, Haleh fled to the Netherlands, where she worked her way up for decades until finally becoming a renowned academic. Her life is rudely interrupted when Haleh receives word that the woman she holds responsible for the death of her daughter is in the Netherlands.

Because she wants to know the truth, Haleh decides to reach out to her. It turns out that the woman, together with her own daughter, has recently fled. The more involved Haleh becomes, the more she finds herself pulled back and forth between doubts about the woman’s true identity and her own vengefulness.

Mitra is the powerful story of a woman who attempts to get a grip on the injustice of her fate and desperately tries to bring back what is lost.

World rights: Thomas Rap – Novel – 254 pages – November 2020 35

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Excerpt:

‘My father fell ill in Italy and passed away the following year, a month before we had planned to go away again.

I was nine, my mother forty-nine. The strange thing is that in some memories I cannot say whether my father was still alive at that moment or not. Maybe because our house is so entwined with him. The trees were planted by him, the tableware was chosen by him, even the washed-out sheets were bought by him.’

Press on I Don’t Want to Be a Dog: A raw, candid account. Wonderfully

surreal.’ ****

- De Limburger ‘Masterly

and bold.’ – Zin ALMA MATHIJSEN (b. 1984) studied Image & Language at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and creative writing in New York. She is the author of six plays, a collection of short stories and three novels.

Mathijsen also writes essays for the newspaper NRC Handelsblad. Her most recent novel, I Don’t Want to Be a Dog (2019), will be published in Germany by C.H. Beck in the spring of 2021.

36

NEW LITERARY FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Alma Mathijsen

Save the Summer Poetic reflections on the fullness of summer life In the bend of a winding road between forests and olive orchards in northern Italy, there is a house that Alma’s parents bought as a ruin.

She was less than a year old when they first took her with them and, since then, not a summer passed without visiting the house, where everything seems to happen more intensely than in the Netherlands.

Alma’s father fell ill there and passed away the following year, a month before they were to go to Italy. In the summers thereafter the loss grew steadily heavier. The house that was so entwined with him now symbolized his absence, while at the same time giving her the ability to summon him in hallucinatory images. In Save the Summer Alma Mathijsen takes readers along to the summers spent in a house that each year needed to recaptured from nature.

There, Alma learned to hide her grief between the cracks and discovered how to let herself fall from the highest bridge in the valley. Now that, for the first time ever, she cannot return this summer, she only has language to win back the house. She reflects on becoming an adult, loss, grief and security.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Autofiction – Option publisher: C.H. Beck Verlag – 189 pages – October 2020

THOMAS RAP

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Press on Down Old Roads: ‘Mathijs Deen celebrates 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 ‘An

extraordinary empathic ability, a sound

style, conscientious research and a 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

intoxicatingly superb writing? You get Down Old Roads...

A masterly work.’ with

– Het Belang van Limburg MATHIJS DEEN (b. 1962) is a writer and radio producer. His short story collection Brutus is Hungry was nominated for the AKO Literature Prize. In 2013, he published The Wadden Islands to national acclaim.

His novel Among People was reissued in 2016 and consequently sold to mare Verlag in Germany. Down Old Roads (2018) has been published in German, Italian and Korean.

38

NEW LITERARY FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Mathijs Deen

The Lightship Aboard the lightship ‘Texel’ life is predictable, until the cook Lammert brings along a young goat to be slaughtered…

For the crew aboard the lightship, the work is monotonous, the living quarters cramped and the pay minimal. The men hold watch, chart the weather, note the names of passing ships and keep the light running. During storms the ship jerks at its chain, in thick fog the foghorn blasts, on clear nights the stars are innumerable. And after four weeks the men can go back ashore.

The moment they all eagerly await.

At the centre of the small community at sea is the cook Lammert, who prepares meals three times a day at fixed hours. Lammert is the most important man on the ship. Food offers consolation and stability in this isolated life. Things carry on as they usually do, until the day he wants to slaughter a young goat for a stew. The arrival of this young, jumpy animal upsets the fixed routine aboard the lightship and puts relationships on edge.

World rights: Thomas Rap – Novel – 125 pages – Rights sold: mare Verlag (Germany) 39

DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Praise: ‘Mortier writes beautiful

metaphorical prose…

Marcel is a literary debut of great originality.’

– Times Literary Supplement ‘Aspiring novelists will be hard pressed to

achieve this

quality.’ – Time Out ‘A dream

debut, staggering in its technical control, brimming with atmosphere, moving and witty, too, and with all that, a style that is completely his own.’ – NRC Handelsblad

ERWIN MORTIER (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.

40

MODERN CLASSIC

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Erwin Mortier

Marcel A family in a Flemish village, bowed by the weight of history Marcel is a striking debut novel written from the point of view of a ten-year-old boy.

The mysterious death of Marcel, the family favourite, has always haunted the young boy. With the help of his schoolteacher, he starts to discover the secrets of Marcel’s ‘dark’ past.

The story of his death on the Eastern Front, fighting along with the SS for the sake of Flanders, and the shame this brought upon his family gradually become clear.

Erwin Mortier unravels this shameful family tale in wonderfully sensitive and evocative manner.

International publishers can publish The Immaculate (see page 46 ) and Marcel in one volume.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Classic – 152 pages – (First publication: 1999 – Sold to seven territories at the time of first publication) Full English translation available

CARGO

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Press on previous work: ‘Faye van Laar is

an intriguing main character

who immediately finds her way into your heart.’ **** ½ – Thrillzone ‘An interesting and suspenseful book in which unexpected events quickly follow each other up. With

great

dialogues.

with a

A

well-thought-out plot

surprising conclusion. Recommended.’ – NBD ‘A

remarkable main character

of whom we

haven’t seen the last.’ – Algemeen Dagblad ‘Corine Hartman is a

big name

in the Dutch thriller

world.’ – De Telegraaf CORINE HARTMAN (b. 1964) worked as a scriptwriter for many years and now has fifteen thrillers to her name. Her books are celebrated for their gritty action sequences and fascinating characters. She has been nominated for the Golden Noose Award a number of times and has won several Crimezone Awards.

42

COMMERCIAL FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Corine Hartman

In Free Fall A suspenseful thriller about ex-psychiatric patient Faye van Laar Faye van Laar gets the opportunity to lead her own life, independently of the psychiatric hospital where she once stayed.

She excitedly begins furnishing her new cottage on the hospital’s estate.

Then Mika Priens crosses her path, an ex-military with PTSD who allegedly murdered his wife and child. He convinces Faye of his innocence and she decides to help him. Together with Lisa, a fellow patient, Faye starts to investigate, whereby they stumble upon the unexplainable deaths of Mika’s ex-colleagues.

Is Mika involved? And is he really innocent? Or has he lost his sense of reality to experimental treatments and become a murderer?

World rights: Cargo – Thriller – 400 pages – June 2020 43

SUCCESSFUL TITLES FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Peter Buwalda Otmar’s Sons Buwalda’s breath-taking masterpiece 140,000 copies sold Shortlisted for the Bookspot Prize and the 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 – Novel – Rights sold: Trilogy: Rowohlt (Germany), Actes Sud (France). Otmar’s Sons: Cappelen Dam (Norway), Politikens Forlag (Denmark), Jelenkor (Hungary) –605 pages – March 2019 – Full German and French translation available – Selected by the Dutch Foundation for Literature as one of the 10 Books from Holland 2019 44

SUCCESSFUL TITLES FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Ewoud Kieft The Imperfected For fans of the film Her, and the series Black Mirror and The Handmaid’s Tale ‘An extraordinarily intelligent, stimulating debut.’ - Het Parool ‘A convincing, psychological character sketch.’ - de Volkskrant 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 – Selected by the Dutch Foundation for Literature as one of the 10 Books from Holland 2020 45

SUCCESSFUL TITLES FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Erwin Mortier The Immaculate ‘His delicate prose can be as evocative and rhythmic as his poetry.’ **** – de Volkskrant ‘With his intimate family story he offers a better picture of WWII than bookshelves full of carefully documented nonfiction did.’ – Het Parool 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 marvelous images.

With this long-awaited novel about the complexity of love, Erwin Mortier confirms yet again that he belongs to the highest class of Dutch-language literature.

International publishers can publish Marcel (see Modern classic section, page 40) and The Immaculate in one volume.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 240 pages – April 2020 – English sample translation available 46

SUCCESSFUL TITLES NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Jan Caeyers Beethoven ‘This biography of a musician, written by a musician, becomes music itself. It literally resonates.’

- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ‘Beethoven […] seeks to unravel the networks that influenced Beethoven’s career, to paint portraits of those who supported him, and to outline the many interests that were at play in forming Beethoven both as a man and an artist’– Financial Times Beethoven grants full attention to the historical context within which the composer lived and worked, and deals clearly with his music, which became more complex and idiosyncratic as the composer grew older. Yet other aspects of Beethoven’s life are illuminated as well, including his relationship with the ‘immortal beloved’. Caeyer’s writing is based on years of experience as a conductor of Beethoven, and is characterized by a good eye for psychological detail and social frameworks. He also evocates the couleur locale of Vienna around the year 1800. It makes it a biography that will appeal to a broad audience of music lovers and those interested in cultural history. This biography is authorized by the Beethoven Haus (Bonn).

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Biography – Rights sold: Beck Verlag (Germany), University of California Press (U.S.A.), Typotex (Hungary), Ghil (South-Korea), Mondadori Libri (Italy), Sphinx (Egypt) –737 pages – February 2014; revised 2020 – Full English translation available 47

SUCCESSFUL TITLES NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Sinan Çankaya My Innumerable Identities ‘I don’t know anyone who can write as thoroughly, incisively, blisteringly and subtly about racism, exclusion, discrimination and identity as Sinan Çankaya does. Çankaya is the Dutch Ta-Nehesi Coates.’ –– Rutger Bregman, Author of Utopia for Realists ‘What do you want me to say?’ asks Sinan Çankaya 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 an extreme-right political party. 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, Çankaya 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 – 244 pages – May 2020 – English sample translation available – Selected by the Dutch Foundation for Literature for Quality Non-Fiction from Holland

SUCCESSFUL TITLES NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Bart Van Loo The Burgundians 155,000 copies sold Shortlisted for the Libris History Prize Nominated for the Bookspot Prize ‘Bart Van Loo is in top form. The Burgundians is impossible to put down…. A masterpiece.’ ***** - de Morgen 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 – History – Rights sold: Head of Zeus (World English, PREEMPT), C.H. Beck (Germany, PRE-EMPT), Flammarion (France), Mondadori (Italy) –608 pages, including footnotes, chronology, bibliography, maps, and two full-colour inserts – January 2019 – Full French and German translation available 49

SUCCESSFUL TITLES NON-FICTION

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Selma van de Perre My Name is Selma The memoires of a 98-year-old Ravensbrück survivor 70,000 copies sold International bestseller ‘shows us how to find hope in hopelessness and light in the darkness.’

- Edith Eger, author of The Choice 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 – Memoir –Rights sold: Transworld (UK + ANZ, preempt), Scribner (US+ Canada pre-empt), Germany (BTB-Verlag, pre-empt), Leduc (France), Mondadori (Italy, pre-empt), Matar (Israel), Wielka Litera (Poland), Tammi (Finland), Euromedia (Czech Republic) – Athenaeum (Hungary) – 239 pages – January 2020 – Full English translation avai 50

ABOUT DE BEZIGE BIJ

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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, ‘de Bij’ 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 51

TH O M A S R A P

DE BEZIGE BIJ

C A RG O

Mark Beumer Director De Bezige Bij; Thomas Rap; Cargo

Francien Schuursma Publisher De Bezige Bij

Marjolein Schurink Publisher Cargo

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

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

Suzanne Holtzer Editor-in-chief fiction De Bezige Bij

Katrijn Van Hauwermeiren Editor-in-chief fiction De Bezige Bij

Chris Kooi Editor De Bezige Bij; Cargo

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

Mariska Kortie Editor non-fiction De Bezige Bij

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

Merijn Hollestelle Editor fiction De Bezige Bij

Anne van den Heuvel Rights department De Bezige Bij; Thomas Rap; Cargo

thomasrap.nl | debezigebij.nl | cargo.nl