De Bezige Bij Foreign Rights Catalogue, London Book Fair 2022

De Bezige Bij The Busy Bee Foreign Rights Guide London Book Fair 2022 You’ll find us at the irc, tables j2 & j3

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

FOREIGN RIGHTS GUIDE LONDON BOOK FAIR 2022 Peter Middendorp Dirk van Weelden Peter Verhelst Nikki Dekker Annemarie de Gee

NEW LITERARY FICTION Cousins ........................................................................ 2 The Example of Their Love ........................................ 4 Bodies .......................................................................... 6 deepdeepblue ............................................................... 8 The Winters ............................................................... 10

Anil Ramdas

MODERN CLASSIC Badal .......................................................................... 12

Gerard Janssen James Worthy Chris de Stoop Jolande Withuis Raoul de Jong Elco Lenstra Tom Rooduijn Irwan Droog Jeroen Theunissen

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION Hackers ...................................................................... 14 Liverpool.................................................................... 16 The Kingdom of Heaven ........................................... 18 No Time to Lose ........................................................ 20 Conversations with Grandpa ..................................... 22 We Don’t Want Adventurers Here ............................ 24 Amstel 278 ................................................................. 26 The House at the End................................................. 28 I = Cartographer......................................................... 30 COMMERCIAL ILLUSTRATED FICTION

Youp van 't Hek & Marije Tolman

Oceans of Time .......................................................... 32

SUCCESSFUL TITLES FICTION Anne Eekhout Mary ........................................................................... 36 W.F. Hermans A Guardian Angel Recalls ......................................... 37 Valentijn Hoogenkamp Adoring Louis Claus .................................................. 38 Stefan Hertmans The Ascent ................................................................. 39 Peter Terrin All The Blue .............................................................. 40 Lisa Weeda Aleksandra ................................................................. 41

Mathijs Deen Raoul de Jong Sandra Langereis Marcel Möring Erwin Roebroeks David Van Reybrouck

SUCCESSFUL TITLES NON-FICTION The Boundless River ................................................. 42 Jaguar Man................................................................. 43 Erasmus: Life of a Maverick ..................................... 44 Family Walk .............................................................. 45 I Compulse: Cured of OCD ....................................... 46 Revolusi ..................................................................... 47

Praise: 'Peter Middendorp precisely captures the conflicting emotions of a cannabis dealer with a guilty conscience. The final scene is simply

majestic.' - de Volkskrant

'Peter Middendorp is a writer to be reckoned with. His

sentences are like diamonds: solid, strong and brilliant.' **** - NRC Handelsblad 'Peter Middendorp is a crafty writer. He invites readers into the head of Cousins' main character. And that is a pretty scary place to be.' **** - Dagblad van het Noorden 'Middendorp is a master of gritty drama and writes seemingly effortless sentences that don't flaunt their extreme precision, although they do contain a healthy dose of dark humour.' - Trouw

PETER MIDDENDORP (b. 1971) made his breakthrough with Trusted Benefits, hailed by critics and awarded the Groninger Book Prize.

You Are Mine was nominated for the Bookspot Literature Prize, awarded the Groninger Book Prize, and translated into German. Peter Middendorp has been a columnist for de Volkskrant since 2012.

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Peter Middendorp

Cousins Imagine your best friend is hit by a bullet meant for you.

The consequences are disastrous, but you're the only one in the know Cousins Arie and Robert are as similar as two peas in a pod. They did everything together from their earliest youth. Growing up. Going to school. Becoming marijuana dealers.

Everything until Arie sells his share of the business and leaves Robert behind to carry on in their former lifestyle. But Robert had always regarded their connection as a unique story of love and loyalty.

Robert looks back on it all when he picks up his cousin Arie from his care home for a trip to the island of Schiermonnikoog. He wants to finally tell his side of the story. But as they get closer to the sea, he starts to wonder: were we really in this together?

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 176 pages – February 2022 – English sample translation available

Praise: ‘Dirk van Weelden uses his parent's letters to tell the story of their blossoming love. The writer compels you to focus on the text and examine it from all angles.’ – de Volkskrant

‘In his uniquely moving The Example of Their Love, Dirk van Weelden brings his father and mother back to life.

He has such mastery of the narrative material that you can't help but wonder: why doesn't he publish more?’ **** – de Limburger

DIRK VAN WEELDEN (b. 1957) studied philosophy and debuted in 1987 with Martin Bril in Vitamins for Work: The ABC of Bril & Van Weelden. In 1989 he made his solo debut with Presence of Mind. That was followed by books including Mobile Home, (Multatuli Prize 1992), Oasis, Orville, and From Here to Here.

In 1999, he was awarded the Frans Kellendonk Prize. He subsequently wrote more novels, short stories and essays, including A Month in Manhattan, a logbook, and the novel The Final Year. Since 1999, Van Weelden has been the editor of literary magazine De Gids.

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Dirk van Weelden

The Example of Their Love A history for our times, in the words of a son who found his parents' love letters after their death ‘As I remember, you were the only one who wasn't surprised when my parents did it together. They did almost everything together, including dying.

They've been dead and buried some twenty years now, and I've started wondering what to do with all the old papers my father and mother left behind.’

They wrote to each other between 1 January 1948 and 31 December 1950.

That was how their love began. He wrote from a ship in the Pacific Ocean, and she from a bombed-out Rotterdam, from the desk of an idealistic female student at the school for social work.

Dirk van Weelden based his book, The Example of Their Love, on those letters. It's a universal tale that reaffirms how we are shaped by circumstances, our parents, their character and ideas. And how, generation after generation, these things are passed on. At the same time, this is a passionate plea for reading and writing as a source of strength and as a fine instrument for remaining intimately present, even from a distance.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 240 pages February 2022 – English sample translation available

Press: 'With his novella, Bodies, Verhelst has again written a story of

intoxicating beauty, a gem on par with the best books he's ever written.' – Tzum 'The claustrophobic novella is based on disconcerting, confronting images so powerful they take

your breath away. "A chaos that leads to its own universe, at times beautifully intuitive, sometimes dark, critical and pulsating," are the words of the jury of the Constantijn Huijgens Prize in summarising Verhelst's oeuvre. Those words also apply to Bodies.' – **** De Morgen 'In a sense, every reader creates a different book, using their own body, memories, and shortcomings […] There's no end to the uniquely penetrating omen Verhelst forged with Bodies. ' – DWB literary magazine PETER VERHELST (b. 1962) is a highly acclaimed poet, novelist and director. For his prose, he has received such awards as the Golden Owl, the Flemish Culture Prize, the Confituur Booksellers Prize and the F. Bordewijk Prize. In addition, his entire body of works has been crowned with the Constantijn Huygens Prize.

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Peter Verhelst

Bodies ‘How long has it been since the dust settled in that room? And how much longer will it be augmented by pollen, traces of mosses and ferns, or particles from a chickadee preening its feathers on a branch?’

A man finds himself in an apartment complex slowly being taken over by nature. He encounters chickadees, a magpie, children, and a bear.

Memories adopt ever-changing forms.

And he finds bodies – lots of bodies.

Bodies is a passionate love letter to images that align with what's genuinely happened in our lifetimes, sometimes even more so than the memories. Verhelst gives every reader a chance to find their own cohesion and personal poignancy. With Bodies, he astonishes readers again with a sensual novella about the longing that drives us towards the light.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novella – 144 pages – January 2022 English sample translation available

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deepdeepblue is a rich, essay-like novel about the unstoppable longing for unknown places, other lives, and the water that always sustains us.

Fragment: ‘Where does desire come from? Is it in you from birth, just waiting to surface, like a predator's hunting instinct?

Whenever I see water, even if it's only a brown, unsightly urban waterway, I feel a twinge in my belly – that's where I'm supposed to be.’

Advance praise: ‘Nikki Dekker's novel could well be the – Algemeen Dagblad

debut of 2022’

NIKKI DEKKER (b. 1989) is a writer and radio producer. Her works have appeared in publications such as Tirade, De Gids and De Revisor. Dekker was nominated for the Prix Europa for her radio documentary The Babysitter and Me. deepdeepblue is her first novel.

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Nikki Dekker

deepdeepblue The world of the mysterious flatfish, periwinkles versus one-night-stands, the blobfish next to a beauty queen, homosexual seals, self-assured bluestreak cleaner wrasse, and much more.

Anemonefish always live in groups that contain one female (the biggest fish) and a harem of males (or family, depending on how you look at it). The largest male mates with the female. When the female dies, the largest male then becomes a female and mates with the secondlargest male, who is then the largest.

And so the circle continues. You are not born female, but you turn yourself into a female when circumstances demand it.

Without a swimming certificate, your chances of survival diminish, as the narrator of deepdeepblue knows. She has learned how to remain calm in turbulent waters and that when the sea is rough, it's best to dive to the bottom and let the roaring waves crash over you.

But in real life, such lessons are of little value.

In her debut novel, Nikki Dekker explores what the creatures of the deep can teach us about love and identity in an associative way.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 300 pages – May 2022 English sample translation available

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

Fragment: ‘He was hoping for snow. Absurd amounts of snow, which would make the roads impassable. A winter from bygone days, with snow falling in ferocious horizontal gusts, hailstones pelting across the land and hammering the roofs. Children would see their footprints in the snow, large and small footprints, a trail that would disappear by morning.’

Press: ‘In crystal clear prose, Annemarie de Gee unfolds the drama of a man whose maddening passivity conceals a world full of desires.’ - Trouw ‘Annemarie de Gee sketches the life of Reik Zwart in an

effortless but highly accurate style. Her images are often quite strong, ensuring that the novel continues to resonate long after the book is read.’ - Athenaeum bookstore ANNEMARIE DE GEE (b. 1987) debuted with her short-story collection Chamber People, which was acclaimed by Trouw as one of the best debuts of 2012. Her first novel, The Kiss of a Clown, appeared in 2015. In addition to writing fiction, de Gee also teaches writing and produces audiobooks.

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Annemarie de Gee

The Winters About the grandeur of a small existence, for readers of Stoner A series of coincidences shapes the life of Reik Zwart, a carpenter’s son from the Dutch province of Gelderland. With years passing by, Zwart takes life as it comes, without any hopes or expectations. And especially, without a plan.

But a life without a plan is not acceptable.

Zwart finds it challenging to figure out who he really is, especially when his nearest and dearest systematically project their desires and frustrations on him.

But does that really matter? Zwart is a classical antihero, an everyman who does not pursue or neglect anything but is simply alive.

The Winters is a moving story about the grandeur of an empty existence, the illusion of a malleable life, and the impossibility of following your own path when surrounded by others.

World rights: Thomas Rap – Novel – 304 pages – February 2022

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Excerpt from the chapter Game Changer: ‘In summer 2021 Dutch hackers found a vulnerability in software belonging to Kaseya, a business that makes tools for system managers working remotely. An enormous number of companies could be attacked through this vulnerability, from banks to transport companies and shop chains. The vulnerability was almost solved when Russian hackers also received wind of it. The result was a race between Dutch hackers and Russian criminals.’

Praise: ‘Hackers delves deeply into the world of international hackers.

In his book, Janssen makes a convincing

argument for the world's need for ethical hackers. A fascinating and very accessible book.’ - NRC Handelsblad ‘Hackers is a probing and evocative portrait of the bizarre world of the warriors of the Internet.’ - Financieel Dagblad GERARD JANSSEN (b. 1967) studied Applied Physics in Delft. He writes for Vrij Nederland and Uitgeverij Snor and is one half of the Easy Alohas, a Dutch DJ duo. He is researching the world of hackers with support from the Dutch Fund for Special Journalistic Projects.

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Gerard Janssen

Hackers The Freedom Fighters of the Internet ‘Inconspicuous people with laptops and an Internet connection, who possess online superpowers and an apparent ability to outsmart others. People like Spiderman, Batman or Doctor Doom really exist. And that's what I wanted to write about.’

Sooner or later, a hacker shows up in almost every Netflix series. Then, a series of numbers and letters flash across the screen before voilà – the secret code for turning off the security cameras appears. But what do hackers actually do? And, how do they do it?

Journalist Gerard Janssen discovered that they don't share their secrets with just anyone. But if you want to learn the art of hacking yourself, hackers are always willing to help. Janssen penetrated the hackers' closed universe and discovered a rich subculture, a close-knit activist community with a common aim: to maintain an open, free and secure Internet. Hackers is an intriguing and exciting book – about female hackers, the vulnerability of election results, and how three Dutch hackers managed to hijack Trump's Twitter account.

World rights: Thomas Rap – Non-fiction – 224 pages – February 2022 English sample translation & synopsis available

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

Fragment: It’s December. The stewardesses are wearing Christmas caps.

Somewhere over Switzerland, my father reaches over and pulls up my jumper without asking.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“I just wanted to see whether you’re wearing a Liverpool jersey under there. You know what I’ve always told you, right?”

“Yes. Never put on a Liverpool jersey when you go to a match abroad.”

“Precisely. No sense in putting a price on your own head. If they see you’re British, they’ll cut to the chase. Two Leeds fans were killed that way last year.”

“I know, Dad. That’s why I didn’t wear a jersey, just a normal vest.”

Praise: ‘Concise, beautiful requiem for Worthy’s father.

A must-read.’ - NRC Handelsblad ‘An elegy to a father. A moving book. Wonderfully written.

With splendid sentences.’ - Ruth Joos, television programme Brommer op zee JAMES WORTHY (b. 1980) is a writer and columnist for Revu and Libelle, among others. He has previously published various novels.

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James Worthy

Liverpool About a city, a club & a father ‘There aren't many examples of so much love in one book. Fantastic.’ – Frits Spits, author James' father was born in Liverpool, and he raised his son to love the city unconditionally, especially Liverpool FC, one of the world's oldest football clubs. For many years, father and son regularly sat shoulder to shoulder in the stands, the last occasion being when Liverpool FC played at home against Huddersfield Town on 26 April 2019. That was the last football game they attended together, although neither knew that at the time. The score was 5-0.

A year after his father's death, James returns to Liverpool, searching for solace and memories. He also hopes to find a ruse for scattering his father's ashes secretly on the grass of Anfield.

World rights: Thomas Rap – Non-Fiction –192 pages – March 2022 English sample translation available

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Praise: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is a and a fervent

sympathetic chronicle

protest.’ **** - NRC Handelsblad

‘De Stoop writes with a serrated combination of compassion and

anger,

solace

and

grief,

astonishment and

understanding.’ **** - NRC Handelsblad ‘With The Kingdom of Heaven, he again succeeds in elevating a tale of ordinary people to a universal Nieuwsblad

level.’

**** - Het

CHRIS DE STOOP (b. 1958) is an author and a journalist for the Flemish weekly Knack. In 2004 he was awarded the Golden Owl Readers’ Prize for They Came from the East. After Peace Be With You, Sister (2010) he wrote They’re So Sweet, Sir (1992) and exposed the inside story behind the international trafficking of women. The book caused an uproar at home and abroad. In 2015, his bestseller, This is My Farm, was sold to Germany, France and China. In 2018 his book about Vietnamese boat refugees, When the Water Breaks, was published.

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Chris de Stoop

Kingdom of Heaven A gripping chronicle of our recent times filled with contagion, compassion, guilt and grief All hell breaks loose when a care facility in Belgium is hit by covid-19 following a visit from Saint Nicholas.

The person who acted as the Saint, a caregiver for his elderly mother, is labelled a super spreader and briefly becomes global headline news.

Hundreds of nursing homes suffered outbreaks, thousands of senior citizens died. But this true story of the role of a caregiver raises probing questions about what was really going on.

Thirty years after his sensational debut, Chris de Stoop writes his most personal book to date. It is a universal story that arouses discomfort while being highly recognisable. A moving, humane, unsettling chronicle told from the inside out.

'You never get closer to your mother than when providing informal care, and in my case, that carried on for eight years. I spent more than a thousand days there, experiencing some beautiful, intimate and difficult moments. It's taxing, but incredibly satisfying.' – Chris de Stoop in de Volkskrant, referring to his book The Kingdom of Heaven World rights: De Bezige Bij – Non-fiction – 176 pages – February 2022

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Praise: 'Jolande Withuis, as driven as her subject matter, writes a

fascinating sociological portrait

of an artist in No

Time to Lose.' **** - De Telegraph 'What's attractive about this biography is that while much is said about Oosting's art, this is decisively not a work of art history. Withuis gets under Oosting's skin, makes a detailed map of her social network, and keeps the context in the background, like a stage set.' - Het Parool 'A

splendid biography.' - de Volkskrant

'A formidable biography.' ***** - NRC Handelsblad

JOLANDE WITHUIS (b. 1949) received the NOW Eureka Prize for her book about processing the trauma’s of the concentration camps, After the Camp (2005). Her biography Be Manly, Be Strong (2008) about resistance fighter Pim Boellaard won the Libris History Prize and the Erik Hazelhoff Biography Prize. Her books Juliana (2016) and Father, A Puzzle (2018) were very well received by the press and became bestsellers. In 2018 Withuis gave the prestigious Huizinga-reading. .

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Jolande Withuis

No Time to Lose The biography of a female artist who broke all the rules 'My entire life and all my thoughts revolve around paintings. They are my oxygen.'

In 1936, when Jeanne Bieruma Oosting was thirty-eight, she confidently presented herself as a painter at an exhibition in Paris. Her Self-portrait in Smock bears a triumphant expression. She had fought a long battle before daring to portray herself in such a way.

According to her family's conservative mores, girls had only one purpose in life – to get married and have children. Working was taboo. But her battle didn't end when Oosting had finally wrestled free of her milieu. Because, even as an artist, she ran up against gender preconceptions. The shockingly graphic work she produced in the 1930s was simultaneously praised as pioneering and criticized for being 'unfeminine.'

In No Time to Lose, Jolande Withuis uses a wealth of material to sketch the life, loves (both male and female), friendships, and the long, multifaceted career of one of the Netherlands' most renowned visual artists. The result is a vibrant and gripping portrait of a gifted, fascinating and courageous woman.

World rights: De Bezige Bij –Non-Fiction – 448 pages – November 2021 Translated reading available

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Fragment: 'Grandpa Ep was always there, from the moment I took my first breath. He had beautiful, white hair combed back from his forehead. He wore corduroy trousers, striped shirts, woollen sweaters and big beige jackets my grandmother bought for him. When he was angry, he stuttered. He was at the forefront of everything he did. He was the reason my mother thought it best to raise her children without a father.'

Praise for earlier work: 'Jaguar Man is a surprisingly rich book. De Jong pulls you into the story, full of offshoots and leaps in time and thought.

It's incredibly easy to see the world through his eyes,

surprised and moved, entertained bewildered. His discoveries become your own.'

and **** –

NRC Handelsblad RAOUL DE JONG (b. 1984) writes for various newspapers and has published five books. He was awarded the Dick Scherpenzeel Prize for his 2013 debut, The Greatness of It All, which was further distinguished with the best Rotterdam Book Award and an honourable mention from the Bob den Uyl Prize. His book Jaguar Man appeared in 2020 and was is nominated for the Libris Literature Prize, the European Union Prize for Literature, the Boekenbon Literature Prize and the Boon. The French translation will be published later this year by Buchet-Chastel.

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Raoul de Jong

Conversations with Grandpa Valuable lessons from the generations that have preceded us Raoul and his grandfather are, in many respects, polar opposites. Grandpa Ep is a white, 90-year-old male who has never had to cook or clean; he has little faith in women drivers. Raoul is 35, mixed-race, prefers men, doesn't have a driver's license, and cries at Julia Roberts’ movies. But his grandpa is one of the people who gave Raoul the gift of life.

When Raoul visits his grandfather in his new room in a nursing home, grandpa Ep seems more confused and fragile than usual. So Raoul decides to talk with him now, when it's still possible, to help come to terms with and preserve the stories of his grandfather's generation. With the corona pandemic and international Black Lives Matter protests as a backdrop, grandpa and grandson discuss life, death and everything in between.

Based on essays Raoul wrote during his grandfather's final year of life, Conversations with Grandpa is a warm universe full of life lessons, love, contented smiles and fairy tales, both large and small.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Non-Fiction – 88 pages – April 2022

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'My great-grandfather duelled with swords, was a marine, a surgeon, a character in a best-selling novel, a decorated war hero, the author of medical articles about typhus fever, cleft pallets and gunshot wounds to the head, a mountaineer, a prize-winning jockey, the director of a sanatorium in China, a chauffeur-driven landowner and, according to the Nazis, a highly unreliable member of the Freemasons.'

Praise: ‘Lenstra writes with gusto about the life of his German greatgrandfather and captivates Handelsblad

the reader.’ - NRC

‘More than fascinating. This family history reads like an adventure novel. A rare glimpse into German colonial history.’ - Algemeen Dagblad

‘Poignantly describes the life of Lenstra's family.’ – Trouw ELCO LENSTRA (b. 1986) is a publisher. He studied German, Polish and Dutch Studies in Amsterdam and Warsaw. He spent four years travelling to various countries to uncover the history of his great-grandfather and his family.

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Elco Lenstra

We Don’t Want Adventurers Here A dazzling journey through modern history Ernst August Kaerger (1879-1955) had, like his forebears, been destined to become a baker in a sleepy provincial town in Prussia.

However, during a period of upheaval in early twentieth-century Germany, there were other professions in store for him: he became a naval doctor in colonial Namibia and China, he performed surgery on hundreds of young men on the Flemish battlefields during the First World War, he bandaged the Red Baron's fingers, was present when SS officer Reinhard Heydrich met his wife, he crossed paths with both Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler, and, during World War II, he managed to save his own sons from the horrors of the Eastern Front.

In We Don’t Want Adventurers Here, Elco Lenstra uses diaries, vast quantities of archival material and hundreds of letters to evocatively reconstruct the fascinating life of his great-grandfather. The latter had been a first-hand witness to countless highs in lows of modern European history.

World rights: Thomas Rap – Non-fiction – 464 pages – February 2022 English sample translation & synopsis available

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Fragment:

‘Unknown to each other, Géza and Fritz kept detailed records of daily life during the war: the tensions inside and outside the house, the raids in the Jewish Quarter across the way, the persecution and deaths of friends, and the peril of being arrested themselves. These highly personal, complimentary diaries bring to life the Rimathés, the Weisz family, and their loved ones. Moreover, these candid writings make it possible to step inside those times, at least to some degree.’

TOM ROODUIJN is a journalist and programme maker. In 2019 he made the award-nominated documentary, The Shadow Play, for VPRO Radio, about the tragically brief life of Géza Weisz. After he completed that documentary, the journals of Fritz Rimathé came to light, and they subsequently became the basis of the history of Amstel 278.

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Tom Rooduijn

Amstel 278 Two diaries, two destinies, all under one roof.

A unique story about going into hiding during WWII Not long after the Germans occupied the Netherlands in May 1940, Géza Weisz and his family had to go into hiding. Along with a handful of others, Weisz turned up at the home of Fritz Rimathé, a Swiss doctor. The address: Amstel 278. Both men kept a journal.

Frits provides a detailed account of his life in Amsterdam, ranging from the raids in his neighbourhood to the artists' resistance movement and the searches of his home. Géza describes the mounting tensions between those in hiding, and his touching reunion with his son Fransje, who is hiding elsewhere.

Their claustrophobic existence ends abruptly in August 1944, when one of Géza's childhood friends turns them in. Thanks to its wealth of autobiographical documents, Amstel 278 is a penetrating narrative describing life – both public and underground – during the occupation.

World rights: Thomas Rap – Non-Fiction – 416 pages – April 2022

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Fragment : 'I am standing on the porch at the back of the house, looking across a white landscape. It's a snow-covered field, a hundred meters deep, with the modest hills’ jagged rocky peaks at the end. To the left lies the coastline, a couple of meters of smooth, steep rocks covered in seaweed, and then the sea. On the horizon, tens of kilometres away, the Norwegian coast stands out, mountain after mountain after mountain. At sunrise, a different light seems to shine on every layer; the white mountaintops glow yellow, bright orange and red; the sky above is clear, a cloudless pink, lilac, and blue. Most impressive is the slight bulge lying like a thick head of foam above the distant landscape, partly obscured by the mountains: I am looking at Svartisen – 'black ice' – Norway's second-largest glacier. The newly-built houses in my Amsterdam backyard suddenly seem very far away. I lean against the railing, breathe the cool Norwegian sea air, and relax.'

IRWAN DROOG (b. 1984) studied Literary Criticism and works as an editor, graphic designer and translator. He is the co-founder of the J.M.A. Biesheuvel Prize and has published in literary magazines, including Tirade.

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Irwan Droog

The House at the End ‘While reading one feels like part of the island's community. The stories and beautiful photographs conjure dreams of a new life far from home.’ **** NRC Handelsblad Irwan Droog did what most people only dream of: he left the hustle and bustle of a Dutch city to live with his girlfriend and dog on a tiny, remote island in Norway.

Surrounded by flocks of migratory birds and stray sheep, he watches the seasons come and go, observing the northern lights to the midnight sun. In his spare time, he delves into the history of the island and its residents.

He meets the fisherman Jim, who loves nothing more than going out to sea every day; Eivind, who takes care of the eider ducks every spring; and Heidi, who found love on the island and never wants to leave.

World rights: Thomas Rap – Travelogue – 224 pages – February 2022

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Fragment:

'Looking at the hills, the sheep and a few rundown cottages, I felt the same excitement as those who turn their backs on the world of career planning, efficiency, entrepreneurship, return on investment, in search of solitude, futility, inertia and romance, fields of clouds, musings, and constellations, but I also felt the pain and embarrassment of those who run away.'

JEROEN THEUNISSEN (b. 1977) has published collections of poetry and several prose works. His 2013 picaresque family novel, The Roundabout Ways, was critically acclaimed and shortlisted for the Libris Literature Prize. It was followed in 2014 by Innocence. In 2016, he won the Herman de Coninck Readers' Prize for Here's Where You Live. In addition, his novel Your Skin was longlisted for the 2018 Bookspot Literature Prize.

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Jeroen Theunissen

I = Cartographer ......

I = Cartographer is a brilliant attempt to come to grips with our rapidly changing world.

When Jeroen Theunissen was about twenty years old, he found a map of Europe in a travel shop. It was covered with thick purple lines marking longdistance hiking trails. Years later, when the author encountered a bout of melancholy, panic attacks and depression and felt trapped in an unhappy marriage, he left behind everyone and everything – including his two children – to start a sixmonth walk from South-West Ireland to the Bosporus. In so doing, Jeroen Theunissen was following in the tracks of the British Patrick Leigh Fermor, who had travelled by foot in 1933 from the Hook of Holland in the Netherlands to Constantinople, straight through a Europe at a pivotal moment – Adolf Hitler had recently assumed power. The Europe through which Theunissen walked faces numerous problems, including climate change, nationalism and a refugee crisis.

I = Cartographer is many books in one. It's an account of a hiking journey.

An attempt to grasp our rapidly changing world. The story of a man who runs away from responsibilities, only to return to try to create a home for his children.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 428 pages – May 2022

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Praise:

‘This novel of ideas by one of the

most interesting

thinkers of our time is an underappreciated jewel.’ - Karin Amatmoekrim, author

smart, witty, original, and hyper-current reflections on style, ‘Anil had a unique voice. I miss his

identity, and being at home – in short, about us.’ - Sheila Sitalsing, author

ANIL RAMDAS (1958-2012) was a writer, journalist and programme maker. He worked for De Groene Amsterdammer and NRC Handelsblad, and made radio and television programmes for the Dutch NPS and VPRO networks. His entire oeuvre is a testimony to his astute reasoning about themes including identity, migration and freedom. Ramdas died in 2012.

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Anil Ramdas

Badal ‘A novel that is still overwhelmingly current about the rage of the underprivileged white lower class.’ – Abdelkader Benali, author

Badal's marriage is over, and his career is at an end. He looks back on his life as a celebrated essayist and journalist and sees a man who moved to the Netherlands as a young student and was quickly embraced by the white intellectual elite. They sent him to London in the early 1990s, where the thousandth night of the fatwa against Rushdie was being commemorated.

Twenty years later, Badal withdraws to the seaside. His only contact is with S. He tells her about his life, disillusionment, and lost love.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 416 pages – May 2022 (first publication 2011)

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Fragment: ‘The retirement party. You know everyone. You know them too well. Way too well. And they’re all there. Bob, that snake who spent years angling for your job. He hates your guts and always whispered the most awful things about you. Look at him. He can barely hide his relief.’

YOUP VAN ‘T HEK (b. 1954) is a Dutch comedian, writer and columnist.

Since 1988, he has written a popular weekly column for NRC Handelsblad.

Every year since 1991, those columns are compiled into book form. Youp's New Year's Eve Shows and theatre texts are also published by Thomas Rap. MARIJE TOLMAN (b. 1976) studied graphic design and typography at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and Illustration and Design in Edinburgh. In 2019, she won the Zilveren Penseel, an annual Dutch award for the best-illustrated children's book.

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Youp van 't Hek & Marije Tolman

Oceans of Time A Handbook for Every Retiree The ultimate gift for every retiree and anyone who likes a good laugh You've stopped working. Your career has ended. That means you're retired.

But then what? You have all the time in the world! But what will you do with it all?

Youp van 't Hek, together with illustrator Marije Tolman, has lighthearted answers to these tough questions. A book chock full of tips and wisdom to make the life of the unemployed retiree as pleasant as possible.

World rights: Thomas Rap – Non-fiction – 80 pages – February 2022 Full English translation available

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Sample pages from Oceans of Time

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Anne Eekhout Mary Rights sold in thirteen territories What mysterious events fuelled Mary Shelley’s brilliant imagination?

The year is 1816 when Mary Shelly, only eighteen years of age, creates the iconic story of Frankenstein’s monster. It is the same summer that Mary and her lover Percy Shelley visit Lord Byron and John Polidori at Lake Geneva. The friends spend long evenings by the fire, drinking laudanum-infused wine while reading one another ghost stories. One night Lord Byron suggests that they each write a ghost story of their own and this triggers a memory in Mary, taking her back four years earlier to Scotland, where she spent the summer and met Isabella Baxter. As Mary falls in love with Isabella, they are plunged into an enigmatic adventure in which imagination and reality prove to be equally strong components. It is from this memory that her story about Frankenstein’s monster arises.

Anne Eekhout brings the young mother, feminist avant la lettre and writer Mary Shelley to life in a highly original novel that is crafted from real historic events and imbued with great imagination.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Pushkin Press (UK/ANZ), HarperCollins/HarperVia (USA/Canada), btb-Verlag (Germany), Gallimard (France), Neri Pozza (Italy), Libri (Hungary), Fraktura (Croatia), Gutkind (Denmark), Kustantamo S&S (Finland), Colibri (Bulgaria), Dobrovský (Czech Republic), Marginesy (Poland), China Translation and Publishing House (China) – Novel – 384 pages – November 2021 English synopsis and sample translation available – Featured in Dutch Fiction from the Foundation for Dutch Literature 36

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W.F. Hermans A Guardian Angel Recalls: The Cloud of Unknowing ‘Hermans does a wonderful job tracking Bert’s ethical, moral, and spiritual roller coaster, which fascinatingly mirrors the Dutch Nazi sympathizers and fifth columnists who enabled fascism. This should establish Hermans as a modern Dostoyevsky.’

– Publishers’ Weekly ‘The speed of events and the rapidly growing complexity of the story are breathtaking.’ – Tim Parks, NY Review of Books On the eve of World War II, a public prosecutor, upset because his Jewish lover has fled and left him, runs over a young girl by car. She was residing clandestinely in the Netherlands. He is torn between his sorrow at the loss of his girlfriend and the guilt about the accident, which is surrounded by mysteries that he tries to unravel as the world around him collapses.

Meanwhile, he is watched over by his guardian angel, who whispers warnings to him, and the Devil, who makes use of the same exhortations.

In this highly acclaimed, gripping war-time novel, personally dubbed ‘one of the most beautiful novels that I’ve written’, Willem Frederik Hermans shows that human actions are not purposeful, but amount to a string of randomness and error.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Archipelago (USA/Canada), Pushkin Press (UK /ANZ), Helicon Plus (Russia) – Classic – 416 pages – First publication: 1971 Full English translation available

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Valentijn Hoogenkamp Adoring Louis Claus ‘Youth, adversity, growing up: these are the materials that many literary debuts are made of, but Hoogenkamp stands above the rest for her crisp style and clever dosing.’ **** – NRC Handelsblad A raw and profound book about love and loss, and the yearning to be truly seen by another It’s 2003, the summer that Louis Claus goes to school wearing a clown suit and Carla cuts her trousers too short, the summer that her father discovers a tumour in her mother’s breast as they make love and her friend Juicy is expelled from school for cocaine-use. After that summer, they go their separate ways, but years later, after her mother’s death, Carla once again becomes fascinated by Louis, who is now a successful actor. Upon returning to her memories, she appears to have misjudged their relationship.

Adoring Louis Claus is about the thin line between longing and despair, keeping silent and speaking out; a poetic quest for intimacy.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Atlantik/Hoffmann & Campe (Germany) Novel – 212 pages – February 2021 English, German and Spanish sample translation available 38

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Stefan Hertmans The Ascent 65,000 copies sold Nominated for the Libris Literature Prize ‘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 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 – Rights sold: Harvill Secker (UK), Pantheon (USA/Canada), Text (ANZ), Gallimard (France), Marsilio (Italy), Diogenes (Switzerland), Fraktura (Croatia), Beletrina (Slovenia), ArtRage (Polen) – Novel – 352 pages – September 2020 Full English, German and French translation available

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Peter Terrin All The Blue Nominated for the ‘Boekenbon’ Literature Prize 2021 ‘Peter Terrin has once again delivered a pitch-perfect book, in its mood and intensity reminiscent of novels by Graham Swift and Ian McEwan.’ – Trouw ‘Terrin describes their love as warm, full and greedy. Their love-making is electrifying (…) It is the way in which he describes the rest, coolly but dramatically, like a sob held in with all one’s might. It tightens itself around your neck like a steel wire.’ **** – de Volkskrant Simon is nineteen years old when he walks out in the middle of a lecture and drops out of university. He feels lost and doesn’t know how to relate to the village and the modest world he grew up in. Together with his best friend Marc, he whiles away long hours in the Azzurra, a poolside café in the nearby provincial city. It is there, surrounded by the blue brilliance of the pool lit up at night, that a passionate relationship arises between Simon and Carla Binotto, an Italian bartender twenty years his senior. There are rumours about her troubled past and about John, her boorish husband. In hypnotic prose, Pete Terrin carries the reader back to the late eighties and to Carla and Simon, who each find themselves at a turning point in their lives, facing impossible choices.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Liebeskind (Germany), Augusti (Sweden) – Novel 287 pages – February 2021 – English sample translation available 40

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Lisa Weeda Aleksandra Named Literary Talent of 2022 by de Volkskrant Shortlisted for the Libris Literature Prize 30,000 copies sold A heart-wrenching family saga covering an entire century in Ukraine In her debut novel, Lisa Weeda unfolds her family’s extraordinary history, which begins with her greatgrandmother Aleksandra. In 1942, she is deported from Ukraine and put to work in the war industry in Germany. Later, granddaughter Lisa travels to her grandmother’s birthplace and ‘meets’ – on the wings of her imagination – her great-grandfather Nikolaj, who awaited his daughter’s return for three quarters of a century. Together with him, she goes in search of traces of her cousin, who was murdered during the newly reignited conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Aleksandra is the story of a family from the East and West that just can’t break free from an area that never seems to find peace and where there is always conflict. Lisa Weeda found the form and the voice to tell this profound story in a grandiose way.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Kanon Verlag (Germany), W.A.B. (Poland), Le Bruit du Monde (France), Garamond (Czech Republic) – Historical fiction – 348 pages November 2021 – English sample translation available

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Mathijs Deen The Boundless River Stories from the Realm of the Rhine In which the Rhine is ever present, at times in the lead role, at others as an extra.

In The Boundless River Mathijs Deen brings the reader, as he did in his acclaimed books The Wadden Islands and Down Old Roads, into his unique world: the grey zone between fact and fiction, knowledge and imagination. ‘Imagine the river is a character, then she’ll have a birth and death as well. Tell me how she was born.’ That is the question Deen asks a geologist one sunny day in September. The answer that follows is the start of a journey that will carry the reader from a time far before we ever spoke of a European continent to the current day, in which skippers still see the Rhine as a living being, a person.

Meandering from the mighty hippos that once grazed on the river’s banks millions of years ago to the exhausted salmon that saw their habitat slowly change, from the girl from ancient Steinheim to the Roman general Corbulo, to the young Goethe and the North Sea fisherman Kommer Tanis – Deen shows how, since the beginning of time, the river has connected and divided, terrified, consoled, sustained and engulfed.

World rights: Thomas Rap – Rights sold: MacLehose Press (UK), Iperborea (Italy), Knesebeck Verlag (Germany) – Non-fiction – 336 pages – September 2021 English sample translation available – Featured in Dutch Non Fiction from the Foundation for Dutch Literature 42

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Raoul de Jong Jaguar Man Shortlisted for the Boon Literature Prize 2022 Shortlisted for the E. du Perron Prize 2022 ‘Jaguarman is a surprisingly rich book. De Jong pulls you into the story, which is full of offshoots and leaps in time and thought. It's incredibly easy to observe through his eyes, surprised and moved, entertained and bewildered. His discoveries become your own.’**** – NRC Handelsblad 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 – Rights sold: Buchet Chastel (France) – Non-fiction –256 pages – November 2020 – English sample translation available – Featured in Dutch Non Fiction from the Foundation for Dutch Literature

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Sandra Langereis Erasmus: Life of a Maverick Libris History Prize 2021 30,000 copies sold ‘Ambitious biography turns Erasmus into a man of flesh and blood.’ – Trouw Erasmus is one of the greatest authors of the Netherlands and Belgium, and even all of Europe.

He embodies the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern day. His significance for literary and scientific history is immense. Even today, thousands of his letters on subjects such as moral constraint and freedom of press have lost nothing of their significance.

The majority of Erasmus’ life and work has been neglected until now. Sandra Langereis is the first biographer who does justice to his life story by closely following his correspondence and describing the genesis of his entire literary legacy. She depicts him as the lively author of In Praise of Folly as well as a brazen biblical scholar who came up against inquisitors, but also Martin Luther. Erasmus’ life story sheds light on an eventful era: a century of dark humour and brutal violence, of religious fanaticism and the struggle for intellectual freedom. This rich biography makes history’s relevance palpable.

Erasmus has never been portrayed as this smart, sharp, brave, angry, scared and – in one word – human. And never before has a biography shone as vivid a spotlight on Erasmus’ day and age.

World rights: De Bezige Bij - Biography, full colour illustrations, 702 pages (excl. acknowledgements, footnotes, bibliography & register, 81 pages) - March 2021 English sample translation available - Featured in Dutch Non Fiction of the Dutch Foundation for Literature 44

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Marcel Möring Family Walk ‘A jewel that leaves you wanting more.’ **** – de Leeuwarder Courant ‘His oeuvre is one great plea in favour of the force of storytelling, the power of the imagination, the building of ingenious literary constructions.’ **** – de Volkskrant Four years ago, Marcel Möring returned to the northern Netherlands, where he had grown up. Wandering through the forest and fields, memories returned to him there that seemed far away and deeply hidden. Now, more than half a century later, he can still – somewhere between waking and dreams – walk to his mother’s adopted parents, who had hidden her during the war. In 1945 his mother had chosen to stay with them instead of returning to Rotterdam, her city of birth. ‘It’s a place where I like being, because of the warmth, the smell, the suggestion, as well, of another world, but I can’t touch anything. That is one of the few things forbidden in my grandparents’ home.’ In Family Walk, Marcel Möring dives, while walking through the landscape of his childhood, into the past and searches for defining people and events. For the first time, he reveals his family history, which is largely characterized by forgetting, forgetting and carrying on.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Option publisher: Luchterhand (Germany) – Autofiction 96 pages – November 2021– English sample translation available

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Erwin Roebroeks I Compulse: Cured of OCD He showers for eight hours every day, drinks soapsuds while in surgical wear, and cuts his skin open to clean it from the inside From the age of twelve to twenty-two, Erwin Roebroeks finds himself in the grip of obsessions and compulsions. He spends eight hours a day in the shower, drinks soap suds while wearing a surgeon’s scrubs, and cuts his skin open to clean it from the inside.

The medical world initially writes him off: he will never get rid of his severe obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). And yet, after long-term clinical treatment with the most extreme of therapies, he succeeds in doing what virtually no one does: he is freed from his OCD. He leaves the clinic as if reborn; however, outside he is confronted with the years that he missed. What does the wide world mean for someone who has seen the darkest depths within himself in an isolated clinic? What do friendship and love hold for someone who has known great loneliness?

In I Compulse: Cured of OCD Roebroeks investigates how he could be cured, and what it means to be freed from an affliction that controlled him for so long.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Psychology – 224 pages – September 2021 English sample translation available

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David Van Reybrouck Revolusi 105,000 copies sold Shortlisted for the Libris History Prize 2021

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: De Bezige Bij – World English rights: Janklow & Nesbit – Rights sold: Suhrkamp (Germany), The Bodley Head (UK), Norton (USA), Actes Sud (France), Taurus (Spain), Feltrinelli (Italy), Natur Och Kultur (Sweden), Siltala (Finland), W.A.B. (Poland), Gramedia (Indonesia) – Documentary by Savage Film: Revolutie in Indonesië (2021) History – 656 pages – November 2020 – English sample translation available

In 2017, the second part of the 1970 resistance poem ‘Someone Asks the Question’ by Remco Campert was mounted on the side wall of the offices of publishing house De Bezige Bij in Amsterdam. In protest at the war in Ukraine, and with the heartfelt approval of Remco, the poem has now been translated into many languages and is spreading all over the world. Both the translators and the designer have forgone payment.

▪ Ukrainian translation: Oksana Smerek ▪ English translation: Donald Gardner ▪ Design: Moker Ontwerp 48

THOMAS RAP

DE BEZIGE BIJ

C A RG O

Mark Beumer Director De Bezige Bij; Thomas Rap; Cargo

Francien Schuursma Publisher De Bezige Bij

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

Marjolein Schurink Publisher Cargo

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

Chris Kooi Editor translated literature De Bezige Bij; Cargo

Jasper Henderson Publisher Thomas Rap

Roel van Diepen Editor Thomas Rap

Juliet Jonkers Editor Thomas Rap

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

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

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

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