De Bezige Bij Catalogue: London Book Fair 2019

De Bezige Bij The Busy Bee Foreign Rights Guide London Book Fair 2019 You’ll find us at the irc, tables 26q & 26r

DE BEZIGE BIJ, THOMAS RAP & CARGO

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FOREIGN RIGHTS GUIDE LONDON BOOK FAIR 2019

Peter Buwalda Nicolaas Matsier M.M. Schoenmakers Simon Caspers

Bart Van Loo Tommy Wieringa Joris van Casteren Pascal Verbeken Jan Cremer Anuna de Wever, Kyra Gantois

NEW LITERARY FICTION Otmar’s Sons ...................................................................... 2 The Advocate of Holland ................................................... 6 Gilles Speksneijder’s Flight ............................................... 8 Destiny ............................................................................. 10

NEW LITERARY NON-FICTION The Burgundians .............................................................. 12 This Is My Mother ........................................................... 16 Mother’s Body.................................................................. 20 Brutopia ............................................................................ 22 Canaille............................................................................. 24 The Climate Is Us ............................................................. 26

Tomas Ross

COMMERCIAL FICTION Blonde Dolly .................................................................... 28

Johan de Boose W.F. Hermans Stefan Hertmans Anita Terpstra Peter Terrin Tommy Wieringa

SUCCESSFUL TITLES FICTION Cursed Wood .................................................................... 30 Memories of a Guardian Angel ........................................ 31 The Convert ...................................................................... 32 Spark................................................................................. 33 Blanco............................................................................... 34 The Blessed Rita............................................................... 35

Stefan Buijsman Alicja Gescinska Paul Scheffer David Van Reybrouck Paul Verhaeghe

SUCCESFUL TITLES NON-FICTION Pluses and Minuses .......................................................... 36 At Home in Music ............................................................ 37 The Shape of Freedom ..................................................... 38 Odes .................................................................................. 39 Intimacy............................................................................ 40

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Press on Bonita Avenue:

toe-curling as early Roth, as roomy as Franzen and as caustic as Houellebecq.' Sunday 'A new writer as Telegraph ‘A

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

Avenue is an entertaining end in itself, and

evidence that Buwalda The Independent

is just getting started.’

plot orchestration and lively character renderings of Bonita Avenue are dazzling.’ The New ‘The

York Times

narrative pyrotechnics alone are a tour de force.’ Die Zeit ‘The

(b. 1971) made his debut in 2010 with Bonita Avenue. The book was nominated for twelve literary prizes, five of which it won. The novel topped the bestseller lists, sold more than 350,000 copies and was translated throughout the world to great international acclaim. The frontiers of the epic world created by Buwalda in Otmar’s Sons will be further explored in its forthcoming parts, Yesman and Hysteria Siberiana.

PETER BUWALDA

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Peter Buwalda

Otmar’s Sons ‘The Dutch answer to Jonathan Franzen.’

NRC Handelsblad

Peter Buwalda is back with a breath-taking masterpiece 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.

At the time of printing we were waiting for the first reviews to come in. An early impression by Arno Koek, bookseller: ‘Eight years of waiting for Peter Buwalda’s new novel is more than worth it. An unparalleled book. It is already one of the most important novels of the 21st century!’

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Many option publishers – Novel – 605 pages 5 March 2019

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93 Everything Andries Star Busman had worked for all his life was odious to Isabelle. She loathed the juvenile novels her grandfather had written about the quick-witted shepherd dog Bello, and the way he and his teenaged masters gave the Krauts a run for their money. Obsolete resistance-kitsch, she thought, even though they had won the man an early and indulgent Silver Pen Award for best children’s book. At school they sometimes speculated that she and Star Busman – who, after his career in The Hague, had started writing fast-selling, cryptoright-wing rip-offs of Lord of the Flies, a qualification only Isabella seemed to tumble to – must be family. “No,” she would say then, “my grandpa lives in northern Thailand, he’s as brown as I am.”

She loathed the framed cover of Elsevier magazine that hung in his study with ostensible comic intent, hearkening back to the days when her grandfather had been boss of the VNO employers’ organization.

What it showed was his doughy face – hair parted up the side, cold and empty fisheyes, cigar in one corner of the overseer’s mouth – and beneath it, in bold caps, “IT’S BACK TO WORK WE GO”. That wasn’t funny, she thought, that was cheap and devoid of empathy: that cover was a token of Star Busman’s gravel-hard character.

She loathed the ingrained bluntness with which he browbeat her grandmother at holiday gatherings, the whole family in attendance:

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prattling away in the trophy room, chomping back petits-fours or spooning up chervil soup at a table that in its setting – if not in the food it bore – would not have been amiss at a multi-star French restaurant. In that mansion which still stood, emblematizing her growing-up years, in the woodland between Malieveld and the Clingendael Institute, Isabelle had never heard him speak a single word of endearment, praise or even just-plain courtesy to his wife, let alone display affection or give her a kiss; the man thought nothing, however, of scolding or snarling at her with a mouth full of the food she had just cooked for him. Sometimes Isabelle would sit there tossing glances, hoping that an aunt or uncle would spit out a Brussel sprout and hiss that enough was fucking enough now, for once. Tell Mama that the coq au vin is delicious, just like everyone else, you old despot – something along those lines. One of her uncles was a judge, her Aunt Djuna a professor of psychiatric medicine, her own adoptive mother chaired the works council at a university – but no, it never happened. On the contrary, in fact: the collected doctorates went on tirelessly buffing up the patriarchal pedestal, which her grandma, in her spiritless, somber fashion, seemed to find the obvious thing to do.

A knighthood for Grandpa Dries, a liber amicorum for Grandpa Dries, Grandpa Dries portrayed in oils by the same painter who had done Beatrix – the only thing missing was a sarcophagus mausoleum for Grandpa Dries. ** Translated by Sam Garrett

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‘Rarely

have I been as close to a 17th-century soul

as in the pages of this novel. Matsier wrote a

gossamer

masterpiece.’ Geert Mak, Author ‘Matsier skillfully interweaves the complex history of the then-young republic with the last ten months of Oldenbarnevelt’s life. In doing so he keeps the story small, in the seclusion of Oldenbarnevelt’s cell, but simultaneously

handles the large political developments that haunt the thoughts of the former statesman. […] A riveting

historical novel.’ HP/De Tijd ‘A

marvellously

thrilling

and

believable

psychological novel.’ Trouw (b. 1945) established his reputation with the short story collections Oud-Zuid (1976), Undetermined Unhindered (1979) and the novella The Eternal City (1982). His autobiographical novel Closed House (1994) was nominated for the AKOLiterature Prize, the Gouden Uil and the Libris Literature Prize and was awarded the Mekka Prize and the F. Bordewijk Prize. He received the E. du Perron Prize for his novel The Forty-eighth Hour in 2005. In 2017 Matsier made his debut as a poet with the collection Untitled Undated.

NICOLAAS MATSIER

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Nicolaas Matsier

The Advocate of Holland 00.

Nicolaas Matsier is unmatched as he slips into Johan van Oldenbarnevelt’s shoes and follows this great historical figure on his journey towards death During the nine months Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the Land’s Advocate, is imprisoned, what thoughts pass through his mind? Nicolaas Matsier follows Van Oldebarnevelt from the morning of his sudden arrest up to his execution on the Binnenhof in The Hague.

In Matsier’s own words: ‘What fascinated me about Van Oldenbarnevelt was this powerful man’s isolation in his last months.

He was incomunicado, as they say in Spanish. Locked up in his own Binnenhof. Deprived from virtually all the information he was used to receiving, as being the one who pulled so many strings. Without access to his personal archive. Without a lawyer, without paper and ink, without charges. And largely without daylight and fresh air.’

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Historical novel – 358 pages – January 2019 English sample translation available 7

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‘Schoenmakers gives every sentence a touch of gloominess.

He effortlessly Trouw

succeeds in capturing our attention.’

‘Schoenmakers excels in dramatic redoubling. And in wonderful sentences. On every page, there is something quotable that illustrates Speksneijder’s downward slide.’ ***** NRC Handelsblad ‘The move would take place between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. ‘Logistical design?’ Speksneijder had seen the term flash past.

‘Deciding where the departments will be housed,’ Schoonhoven explained. ‘It’s about how we can all fit in together optimally.’

Speksneijder felt the weight of new terms and tight deadlines pressing on his brain, the tyrannical language of management made him shiver. ‘I don’t think I’m up to this,’ he said.

He drew his untouched notebook towards him, the chill of a sweat-drenched shirt spreading across his back.’

M.M. SCHOENMAKERS

(b. 1949) was born in Den Bosch, studied at the University of Tilburg and left for Suriname in 1977. He returned to the Netherlands in 1989. His years in Suriname inspired five novels, each published by De Bezige Bij in the period 1989-1998. After a prolonged silence, he returned with another novel, the universally acclaimed The Cloud Knight, which was included on the longlist of the Libris Literature Prize.

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M.M. Schoenmakers

Gilles Speksneijder’s Flight What starts as a delightful office novel degenerates into a personal drama that profoundly moves Gilles Speksneijder holds a modest position in a service-providing organization. He then finds himself appointed assistant relocation coordinator, only to virtually collapse under the weight of his new responsibilities. .

When an anti-squatter threatens to disrupt the relocation process, Gilles has no choice but to offer the young woman a place to stay in his home.

From that moment on the relations in the Speksneijder household begin to shift: as Gilles is steadily pushed to the margins, his wife and the young woman become friends.

His final task becomes to deliver the old office empty and tidied. That doesn’t happen without a fight, and matters go from bad to worse. In this novel M.M. Schoenmakers meticulously paints, with humour and selfmockery, the rise and fall of a man deemed dispensable.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Novel – 280 pages – February 2019 – English sample translation available – Selected by the Dutch Foundation for Literature as one of the ‘10 Books from Holland 2019’ 9

THOMAS RAP

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‘Destiny doesn’t speak. She looks first at him and then at me. She might have no idea who I am. Her mother’s dead. Her grandfather’s laid out a week’s supply of Chinese food on the table and her grandmother’s sitting, as she’s done her entire life, motionless on the couch. ‘Hi Destiny, I’m your uncle Diederik, don’t you remember?’ My voice catches twice.

She nods.

I swallow. ‘Are you hungry?’ I ask. It’s the only thing I can think of to stop myself from bursting into tears.’

Simon Caspers is the pen name of duo MARTIJN SIMONS and CASPER VANDEPUTTE. Martijn Simons (b. 1985) made his debut in 2010 with the novel Summer Sleep. His second novel, My Name is Julius, was published in 2015.

Both books were enthusiastically received. Casper Vandeputte (b. 1985) is a writer and director. Since graduating from the Maastricht Theatre Academy, he has been producing plays for several Dutch theatre companies.

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Simon Caspers

Destiny A heart-breaking novel about unexpected parenthood When his sister abruptly dies, Diedrik suddenly finds himself the foster parent of his six-year-old niece, Destiny. Until then his life had gone smoothly. After a not undeserving, but unfortunately title-less career as a professional tennis player, he has indeed landed on a side track as a tennis teacher for a pair of spoiled teens, but that’s just a matter of time. He has grand plans and he’s on the verge – having developed his own trainers – of making it big in business.

Caring for a child is harder than he thought, and while Destiny more often hinders rather than helps him, he grows increasingly attached to her. When it appears that, like him, she possesses a unique talent, Diedrik decides to support her 100%.

World rights: Thomas Rap – Novel – 224 pages – February 2019 English sample translation available 11

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‘Bart Van Loo is in top form. The Burgundians is

impossible to put down and hits like a sledgehammer. A masterpiece.’ ***** de Morgen ‘Bart Van Loo is back and proves once again that he is a born storyteller. He is the perfect guide through history. It’s as if we’re there.’ **** de Standaard ‘Documented down to the details, but with an eye for anecdotes and humour, the author guides you through about 1000 years of our history. (…) The Burgundians is publicity for everything having to do with history, the storyteller’s pleasure ***** Het Nieuwsblad

drips from this book

that much.’

‘It’s original, extraordinarily readable and historically sound.’

Herman Pleij, emeritus professor of Medieval Dutch literature, University of Amsterdam ‘Van Loo successfully sets the fascinating late middle ages in the limelight. (…) In doing so he brings their world joyously to life – so much so, that this book (though the year is still young) presents a cast-iron

candidate for best history book of 2019.’ ***** de Telegraaf ‘Knowledgeable in his use of the most recent literature, but also

nimble

and told with panache. A proof of extraordinary mastery.’ Frits van Oostrom, University Professor for the Humanities at Utrecht University

‘Both

compelling

and

historically

accurate.’

Prof. Dr. Wim Blockmans (b. 1973) has developed over recent years into a rare double talent as a writer and entertainer. Though he become known to a broad public through his mini-lectures in the television programme DWDD (a million viewers), Bart Van Loo is first and foremost a born writer and the author of the universally praised France Trilogy (2011), Chanson (2011) and the bestseller Napoleon (2014).

BART VAN LOO

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Bart Van Loo

The Burgundians 50,000 copies sold of this scintillating account of pyres and banquets, plagues and jousts, Joan of Arc, Jan van Eyck, Philip the Good and the Golden Fleece 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 individualism and dying knightly ideals, of schizophrenic kings, bold dukes and brilliant artists. While the Burgundian dukes forged the fragmented Low Countries into a unified whole through battles, marriages and reforms, they spurred artists like Klaas Sluter, Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden to produce unforgettable works. Along the way, Bart Van Loo’s equally thrilling and educational exploration of the middle ages develops into an impressive cultural history.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Head of Zeus (World English, PRE-EMPT), C.H. Beck (German, PRE-EMPT) – History – 607 pages, including footnotes, chronology, bibliography, maps, and two full-colour inserts – January 2019 English sample translation available 13

EXCERPT FROM THE BURGUNDIANS

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A series of storms drove apart the fleet. It even briefly seemed that the new Duchess Isabella, the daughter of King John I of Portugal and the sister of Henry the Navigator, might be in mortal danger. But the missing princess finally set foot on shore in Sluis (L'Écluse) on Christmas Day. It had been a long ordeal, for both the voyagers and Philip, but the moment he saw her, he recognized her lively features from Jan's portraits. The Burgundian ladykiller was won over completely, taking as his motto Aultre n'auray, 'I shall have no other.'

'With these rattles you can make heroes' After the official wedding ceremony in the main church in Sluis on 7 January, the new duchess was brought in a procession to Bruges. There Isabella was received with a fanfare by seventy-six trumpeters; the celebration was so elaborate she hardly knew where to look. A lion's paws spouted red and white wine. A deer tinkled a constant stream of mulled wine. A squirrel held a jug running over with rosewater. These three animals were carved from wood and painted to look almost alive. There was no place for her to rest her eyes. The Burgundian horror vacui prevailed, as it had so often before; everything was crammed full, fuller, fullest. Bruges had been transformed into a festival of triumphal arches, decorations, and tableaux vivants.

The guests came from all points of the compass and wore the most colourful variety of raiment. Even the palette with which Jan van Eyck had painted the brand-new bride must have seemed pale in comparison to the motley masses that swarmed the streets of Bruges on 8 January.

Afterwards, chroniclers had to work overtime to complete their fulsome descriptions of the most prominent guests, which read like a Who's Who for 1430. One effusive annalist recorded 5,000 participants; another wrote of 150,000 onlookers—although the triumphant number-juggling in such chronicles should always be taken with a grain of salt. Many houses were hidden from view by scaffolding put up for the occasion, where the locals rented seats to whoever wished to see the wedding procession go by.

Philip had transformed his economic capital into one great theatre.

The guests were astonished by the entremets – amusements, edible or otherwise, between the main courses of the wedding banquet. The biggest 14

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surprise was a blue ram with gilt horns, which it used to tear its way out of an enormous pasty. The same floury edifice also gave issue to a giant, who entertained the audience by frolicking with a woman dwarf who was prancing about. The duke was beaming. He had acquired the minuscule woman in Hungary for a small fortune. And look, someone was riding a roasted pig. Nearby, a stuffed boar pooped radishes when you tugged on its curly tail. Need I mention that they gobbled and guzzled on a gargantuan scale? Or that for days on end Bruges, like Cambrai in 1385, was overrun with knights who risked their lives in jousts? Or that everyone who was there would never forget it, and would tell the whole story to whoever would listen?

Let me reassure you, dear reader, that after the detailed account of the wedding festivities in Cambrai, we won't repeat the whole performance here. If you can, imagine that earlier wedding, but larger, more lavish, and more luxurious. Imagine the wedding to end all weddings. Imagine the ultimate peaceful display of power. It was no coincidence that the coats of arms of Philip's dominions showed up in the scenes played out at the table.

What appeared to be ingenious ceremony was, in fact, sophisticated marketing. Philip used gastronomy and fine art to showcase his power – and to make it abundantly clear to all that the good grandson was more than a match for his bold grandfather. Some people really know how to flaunt it. His wife was permitted to play her role, too, of course, but above all, the marriage was the duke's coronation as king of Burgundy's histrionic monarchy.

Where exactly did Philip the Good acquire his fondness for razzledazzle? Well, for one thing, he stood on the shoulders of his grandpa, who had drunk in the pomp of the French court as a young prince and later used his own feasts and funerals to put Burgundy on the European map. But the ducal flair for marketing through spectacle owed at least as much to a fairy-tale castle inherited from Margaret of Flanders. The Hesdin estate had fired the imagination of Margaret's husband Philip the Bold, and it inspired his grandson to still greater flights of fancy. Telling the story of this legendary theatrical monarchy without mentioning Hesdin would be like sitting down to a banquet without barrels of Beaune.

Translated by David McKay 15

TOMMY WIERINGA

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‘In This Is My Mother Tommy Wieringa sketches a portrait of his late mother that is as loving as it is merciless.’

Knack ‘With a master’s hand, Tommy Wieringa paints the portrait of a woman who chose an adventurous life over the security of a family.’ ***** de Morgen ‘Tommy Wieringa ruthlessly and tenderly brings his mother to life. In this jewel he also shows us that he is a gifted writer: stylistically polished, meticulous in weaving the web of the story and an excellent observer.

With just a few pen strokes he reveals an emotional landscape without explicitly naming any emotions.’ tzum.info ‘Wieringa stitches tatters and scraps from the past with

drily

humorous descriptions that hit home, together forming a literary

monument to his mother. This Is My Mother is another example of great class.’ Het Belang van Limburg (b. 1967) is the author of, among other titles, Joe Speedboat (F. Bordewijk Award), Little Ceasar (shortlist International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), These Are the Names (Libris Literature Award), The Death of Murat Idrissi and The Blessed Rita (Bookspot Literature Prize; Critics’ and Readers’ awards).

His work is praised worldwide and is translated in over twenty countries.

TOMMY WIERINGA

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Tommy Wieringa

This Is My Mother ‘I was the age my youngest daughter is today. The way she stands there, hands in the pockets of her sweatpants, staring at a belt of bare poplars, I recognize myself and remember my mother. Childhood: the deeply sensed uselessness of it all. And a parent standing at the sideline, shouting to her to move up the pitch, because she must needs be an instrument of his ambition, competitive and zealous.’

When Tommy Wieringa was twelve years old, his mother chose for a more adventurous life elsewhere. Though they are bound to each other closely, from that moment on their relationship is marked by quarrels. The final and biggest point of contention between Wieringa and his mother is the alternative treatment of her breast cancer, a disease that would ultimately prove fatal for her. In this gleaming string of stories and memories, Tommy Wieringa sketches a loving a portrait of their tumultuous relationship that is as loving as it is tragicomic.

World rights: De Bezige Bij. Publisher: Wieringa – many option publishers – Memoir 188 pages – January 2019 – English sample translation available 17

EXCERPT FROM THIS IS MY MOTHER

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AMAZON My youngest daughter, on a cold soccer pitch somewhere in North Holland province: a consummate display of indifference. She’s six, she’d like to be on a team with other girls, but there are only boys her age. She comes to the sideline and says, in a huff: “It’s already 7 – 1.”

“8 – 1,” I say. Behind her back the little boys on the opposing team are cheering as though they’ve just won the national cup. It’s something soccer players pick up early, that theatricality.

She trudges back onto the pitch and, from then on, only touches the ball when it happens to roll right in front of her.

Midway through the 1970s, during a handful of riding lessons in Aruba, I myself sat on a horse’s back with the same total lack of interest.

“Slouching down, chewing gum,” my mother said scornfully that evening, and there in the front room she smacked me with the riding crop. On my back and on my bare ass, she really went at it.

There is a picture of her, sitting tall in the saddle, against the background of a straight hedge of candelabra cacti – dry heat, powdery dust beneath the horse’s hooves. Big and strong she was, with powerful thighs that imposed their will on man and horse alike. (The word “amazon”, according to linguists, is derived from “a-mazos”, Greek for “without breast” – myth has it that the Amazons cut off their right breasts in order to more easily ply their bows on horseback, in Scythian fashion. My mother would lose her right breast only much later in life.)

When I asked her, once I was grown up, what it was that had infuriated her so back then, she told me it was my slackness that stood out most in her mind. Chewing gum and indifference.

Alongside that, I believe, was also that fact that during the riding lesson itself she had been unable to reprimand me, because there were other 18

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people around, and so she’d had to bottle up her impotent rage until that evening.

I was the age my youngest daughter is today. The way she stands there, hands in the pockets of her sweatpants, staring at a belt of bare poplars, I recognize myself and remember my mother. Childhood: the deeply sensed uselessness of it all. And a parent standing at the sideline, shouting to her to move up the pitch, because she must needs be an instrument of his ambition, competitive and zealous.

“Is that how you remember me,” I can hear my mother say, “based on one single incident? One time was all it was, with that riding crop, and that’s all you remember? Not those other times when I picked you up, cuddled you, sang you to sleep and comforted you? Something that just happens to pop into your mind because you’re watching your daughter out on a football pitch?”

“Yes,” I answer, “exactly that. That incident. Lots of incidents taken together form a pattern.”

“It wasn’t all that hard anyway. One little smack.”

“Let’s stop talking about it,” I say, fatigued, “my memory of it is obviously distorted, and yours is faltering.”

“You’re selling me short,” she complains, “the way you always have. My friends say the same thing, that you’re a mother-hater. I would be so delighted if, just for once, you’d show a little interest in who I really am, instead of in all those projections.”

I have already stopped listening. I think about the past few years, my role as dedicated father, drawing Aboriginal patterns on bananas with a food marker for his daughters’ lunchboxes, teaching them the difference between a jackdaw and a magpie, that language is power and how you go about playing life in earnest – but all they will remember is a flush-faced man, standing on the sidelines, screaming “step up!”

Translated by Sam Garrett 19

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‘Mother had been very clear, he was not to tell anybody. She was lying on the marital bed, it was Tuesday 23 July 2013.

Piet had sat next down to her, on the side where father used to sleep. “What else can you do, my boy?” She started to talk about their cats. At that point there were nine, who were fed high-quality food from exclusive brands which she bought at Das Futterhaus in Tüddern, just over the border in Germany.

Then there was the rent, and all those other costs. How would he be able to come up with that on his own? Piet did not contradict her, he had never done so. So he said: I won’t tell anyone, mother.’

(b. 1976) had already earned a name as a journalist for his outstanding rapportage, for which he received the Gouden Pennetje Award, when he made his breakthrough in 2008 with Lelystad, which was nominated for the AKO Literature Prize. Thereafter he published, among other works, the equally celebrated The Foot in the IJssel (2013), nominated for the Bob den Uyl Prize, and People on Mars (2016).

JORIS VAN CASTEREN

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Joris van Casteren

Mother’s Body The investigative account of a son who cannot say goodbye to his mother Piet van der Molen is a childless, single man who has never worked in his life and always lived at his parents’ home in the province of Limburg. He has no siblings. After his father’s death, his mother wants Piet to take his place.

When his mother passes away in the scorching summer of 2013, Piet keeps her at home. He continues having conversations with her, his grief is too immense. Two and a half years later, two police agents come knocking. The street watches as people in white suites hoist a ramshackle coffin outside.

Gripped by the incident, Joris van Casteren heads to Limburg. Once there, he and Piet strike up an unexpected bond.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Narrative non-fiction – 288 pages – February 2019 English sample translation available 21

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‘It was, above all, after the Second World War that it often teemed before my eyes, the city was changing at such a dizzying pace that I almost tumbled from my spire. Within a relatively short period, Brussels became a quilt of about a hundred and eighty nationalities. A centrifuge of globalization.

Brussels is not just one city, she is many cities, and for that reason so elusive, even to her residents. Step off the underground just a stop further, walk around a corner, and you have arrived in another world, in another time, in another language area. That writhes and rubs. In Brussels it is easier to feel lost than secure. And yet different communities have never once turned on each other with machine guns. Of all the miracles that have happened in this city, that is perhaps the most extraordinary.’

About Tranzyt Antwerpia:

dazzling meditation on Europe then and now. Important and heartrendingly beautiful.’ De Correspondent ‘A

(b. 1965) is an author and screenwriter. He wrote, among other works, Poor Wallonia, Grand Central Belgium, Tranzyt Antwerpia and tv-scripts such as 100 Years Ahead. His books made the shortlists for the ABN-AMRO Prize for Non-fiction and the VPRO Bob den Uyl Prize for Best Travel Book. Poor Wallonia won the M.J. Brusse Prize.

PASCAL VERBEKEN

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Pascal Verbeken

Brutopia Verbeken reveals the modern soul of the mysterious city of Brussels Brussels is the most contested city in Belgium and the European Union.

The capital city for half a billion European citizens conjures up images of disrepair, poverty, chaos and bureaucracy. ‘It’s like a hell hole,’ Donald Trump declared. But Brussels is also the unsuspected breeding ground of utopias and urban experiments. Karl Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto there, Salafis are incubating the creation of a religious utopia and the European Union is developing the most ambitious political project since WWII. Moreover, Brussels has demonstrated itself to be a refuge for dissident revolutionaries and artistic iconoclasts like Charles Baudelaire, the greatest Brussels-hater of all time. Some dreams changed the world, others shattered on the city’s cobblestones. In Brutopia, Pascal Verbeken retraces the footsteps of the dream chasers. He explores European salons and slums, listens to thinkers, the homeless, prostitutes, political leaders and ambitious new arrivals. Verbeken superbly guides the reader through the history of Brussels dreams.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Cultural history – 288 pages – May 2019 – English sample translation available 23

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‘On stage she was a cross between a swallowtail and a cheetah. So wonderfully beautiful and graceful in the way she moved, fluttering like a butterfly, so light and tender as if gravity didn’t exist for her. Only immediately thereafter to slide across the boards like a predator in search of prey. My new love, my star, my prima ballerina, my Perrine. She was a stirring beauty on stage. When I went to see her dance in the role of a dying swan, the audience in the Lincoln Center looked on breathlessly, as if in that moment time stood forever still, at which their emotion brought them to tears and the handkerchiefs came out.’

Press on previous work:

tremendous form. The descriptions of sex are totally inspiring and often terribly funny.’ De Groene Amsterdammer ‘Cremer is once again in

(b. 1940) has written, aside from the I, Jan Cremer cycle and other titles, the novel The Huns (2005), the collection of travel stories The Wild Horizon (2003), Lost Poems (2004) and Letters 1956-1996 (2005). Fernweh was published in 2016, and 2017 saw the publication of Sirens – the heartrending story of the love between Loesje Hamel and Jan Cremer, as told through their love letters.

JAN CREMER

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Jan Cremer

Canaille A raw depiction of a marriage, as well as an evocative portrait of the sixties Canaille doesn’t just stand for bad people, for bad women; Canaille is a plague, a woodworm that slowly eats away at everything. Not least of all the world of art and culture.

Love, too, is gnawed at. It eats its way through everything and, over time, brings entire buildings crashing down.

The year is 1967. After the end of his hopeless relationship with top model Loes Hamel, Jan Cremer meets a prima ballerina from the New York City ballet world while in America. She becomes his new great love. Cremer sets himself the task of providing her and their newborn daughter a house of their own. In Cape Cod they briefly manage to lead an idyllic family life that neither of them has known.

However, a lack of cash and the allure of other women eventually drive them to his stepparents’ rigid household in Antwerp. There, he finds himself at the mercy of the Canaille. Cremer feels the bond between him and his ballerina slowly dissolve and discovers a side of his lover he did not think he would come to know, one that leads him to the edge of an abyss.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Memoir – 272 pages – March 2019 25

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‘We are the climate.

We are reaching out a hand to every one of you and will continue to do so.

We can only succeed together.

The actual growth that we need is the growth of love, the growth of vigour, the growth of connection and, above all, imagination, the growth of hope, the growth of passion for life, the growth of respect for nature.

Naïve, isn’t it?

Join the movement’ ‘What Anuna and Kyra are doing is so Greta Thunberg

important.’

‘It started in Brussels. We saw it and thought:

that’s what

we’re going to do.’

Youth for Climate Netherlands

(b. 2001) and KYRA GANTOIS (b. 1999) are young activists from Mortsel, Belgium, and the initiators of the climate protest in Brussels (2019) where more than 35,000 students joined in. Furthermore, they are the founders of Youth for Climate. They are not going to stop their protests until the political climate policy has been drastically amended.

JEROEN OLYSLAEGERS, author of the internationally acclaimed novel WILL, has put their plea into words.

ANUNA DE WEVER

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Anuna De Wever & Kyra Gantois with Jeroen Olyslaegers

The Climate Is Us ......

A letter to everyone They started with two. Sitting at the kitchen table, Anuna and Kyra shared their concerns about the climate and decided: enough was enough. On 10 January, in a city square designated by the police, Belgian students organized a protest against the current climate policy.

There was not enough space for the 3000 students who showed up. A week later there were 12,500, the week thereafter: 35,000. Anuna and Kyra quickly became the faces of a protest generation that will no longer let itself be dismissed by politicians with reassuring words. In The Climate Is Us two young climate activists reach out a hand to each of us: to politicians and policy makers, to parents and grandparents, and to their peers. They’re naïve, as they put it themselves. But here that just means: unavoidable, just like the future, as the clock ticks on. For every euro this book earns, De Bezige Bij will donate half to Youth for Climate.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Editions Stock (France) – Manifesto 72 pages – March 2019 27

CARGO

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‘Blonde

Dolly fascinates, it intrigues and there’s a hidden, building tension from start to finish. Because

you get the feeling that you’re reading a true, and therefore the author combines facts with fiction, realistic, story.’ **** Hebban Magazine ‘In Blonde Dolly, daring

conspiracy theories, supported

by facts, are put to rest. A phenomenal writer.’ NPO Radio ‘An

exciting thriller of the kind we’ve come to

expect from Tomas Ross.’ Elegance ‘Blonde Dolly is meaty,

unpredictable and everyone in it

has got a simmering agenda.’ *** Knack (b. 1944) has been one of the leading thriller authors in the Netherlands for more than thirty years. In his exciting and daring thrillers, he toys with the dividing line between fact and fiction. He has won the Golden Noose Award three times and worked as a screenwriter on many acclaimed films and shows.

TOMAS ROSS

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Tomas Ross

Blonde Dolly The Netherlands’ most famous cold case Sixty years after her death, Blonde Dolly’s name is alive and well. For decades police and journalists have searched for her murderer. Her murder remains a riddle, a mystery, much in the same way Sebilla Niemans, aka Blonde Dolly, also was. She was a prostitute working on the fringes of The Hague, married to a violinist from the renowned Residentie Orchestra.

She travelled to London, Antwerp and Paris and spent nights with the rich and famous in chic hotels.

The questions surrounding her puzzling death on 31 October 1959 have never been answered. Why did the Chief Commissioner of The Hague personally lead the investigation? How did Dolly acquire a fortune in money and houses? Where is the notorious blue book in which she wrote down all of her clients’ names? In Blonde Dolly crime writer Tomas Ross unfolds a chilling plot in which everyone has a hidden agenda.

World rights: World rights: Cargo – Cold case – 388 pages – January 2019 29

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Johan de Boose Cursed Wood Longlisted for the Libris Literature Prize The miraculous journey of an extraordinary piece of wood across two thousand years of history ‘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 A piece of wood from a tree in Palestine was used to crucify the prophet Yeshua. The wood turns out to have magical powers: it can talk and it arouses exceptional desire in anyone who touches it. When a theatre director takes it to support his stage set, a spectacular journey begins.

The piece of wood finds its way to the Roman emperor, Orthodox monks, the Russian tsar, Islamic scholars, inventors, the pope, fascists and communists, painters, scientists and terrorists. Along the way it encounters famous toenails, shrouds and foreskins. The journey lasts more than two thousand years. With the wood as a witness, Johan de Boose takes the reader on a journey past the most dramatic events of European history. The fact that the wood has certain reservations about everything adds an appealing, ironic touch.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: btb-Verlag/Luchterhand (Germany) Novel – 214 pages – September 2018 – English sample translation available 30

SUCCESSFUL MODERN CLASSIC

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W.F. Hermans Memories of a Guardian Angel ‘One of the finest novels I have written’

Willem Frederik Hermans (19211995) was one of the most prolific and versatile Dutch authors of the twentieth century. In 1977 he received the Dutch Literature Prize – the most prestigious literary prize in the Netherlands.

He wrote an enormously varied oeuvre and stands as one of the greatest Dutch writers of all time.

In this gripping war novel, Willem Frederik Hermans shows that human interactions are not purposeful, but instead amount to no more than a string of randomness and error. On the eve of WWII, a public attorney, devastated because his Jewish lover fled without him, runs over young girl living clandestinely in the Netherlands. He is torn by grief at the loss of his girlfriend and guilt about the accident, which is enshrouded in puzzles that he attempts to unravel while the world around him collapses. In the meantime, he is looked after by a guardian angel, who whispers him warnings, and by the Devil, who exploits the same admonitions. Memories of a Guardian Angel is an outstanding and thrilling novel that holds a place of honour within Hermans’ oeuvre.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Archipelago (North America), Pushkin Press (UK & Commonwealth), Helicon Plus (Russia) – Paperback – 393 pages – 1971 – full English translation available in due course 31

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Stefan Hertmans The Convert 90.000 copies sold ‘The Convert is a crucial book that will stir hearts and minds.’ **** de Standaard .

‘Hertmans has created a heroine for the ages.’ ***** Knack

In a small town in Provence, France, the people have spoken of a pogrom and a hidden chest since time immemorial. At the end of the nineteenth century a startling collection of Jewish documents was found in a synagogue in Cairo. It is here that Stefan Hertmans discovers the traces of a distinguished Christian noblewoman from the eleventh century who abandons her life for the love of a Jewish boy. He follows in the footsteps of this woman as she flees with her forbidden love and undertakes a dizzying journey full of hardships, hunted by everyone and everything. Hertmans based the story of The Convert on historical facts, including a letter of recommendation written by a rabbi on parchment, and he brings the Middle Ages to life with immense imagination and stylistic ingenuity. It is a story that draws him into a chaotic world of passion, hate, love and death, and one that in the end carries him from Cairo back to the small village in Provence where he has made his home for decades.

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World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Hanser Berlin (Germany), Marginesy (Poland), Harvill Secker (UK), Text (ANZ), Pantheon (USA, Canada), Gallimard (France), Marsilio (Italy), ArtPeople (Denmark), Norstedts (Sweden), Helikon (Hungary), Fraktura (Croatia), Beletrina (Slovenia), Perseus (Bulgaria) – Novel 314 pages – October 2016 – Shortlisted for the Prix Femina étranger 2018 – full English, French, and German translations available 32

SUCCESSFUL TITLES COMMERCIAL FICTION

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Anita Terpstra Spark A fire breaks out in the house of a ballet-dancing couple.

They accuse each other of arson and attempted murder.

Who is telling the truth and who is lying?

‘A fantastic thriller, in the style of Karin Slaughter **** Dagblad van het Noorden ‘Spark is a turbulent thriller that you read in one breath. Terpstra knows how to save the climax to the end.’ **** Readalicious In the ballet world, Dutch Mischa and Russian Nikolaj are a celebrity dream couple. The car accident in which their small daughter died seems to have brought them even closer together. Then fire breaks out in the house where they are living temporarily. Mischa and Nikolaj survive the fire, but both end up in hospital severely injured. In a two-room setting in alternating chapters, Mischa and Nik each tell their own story. It is up to a police inspector to identify the unreliable narrator. Nik claims that on the night of the fire he told Mischa that he wanted a divorce, which is why she wanted to kill him.

According to Nik, Mischa has been drinking since the death of their daughter.

He is worried about their son and wants to take him away. Mischa says it is the other way around: she wanted to divorce him… readers are kept on their toes until the very end in this tense psychological thriller.

World rights: Cargo – Rights sold: Blanvalet (Germany) – Psychological thriller – 288 pages – July 2018 – Sample translation and synopsis available – Selected by the Dutch Foundation for Literature for ‘10 Books from Holland’ 2018 (thriller) 33

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Peter Terrin Blanco ‘Like an iron fist around your throat’ de Morgen

Victor, a cell biologist working for the Ministry of Public Health, has difficulty in coming to terms with the death of his wife during a carjack. Nightmares disrupt his experience of reality. He is allowed to stay at home to continue research into the influence of environmental pollution on the workings of the cell. To Victor, the outside world is full of acute danger. Initially, he is worried about the assumed lack of security at his son Igor’s school. He has the teacher followed because he does not trust him with children. Igor is expelled from school because, on his father’s instructions, he has carried a knife in order to defend himself. Subsequently, Victor barricades the two of them in their flat.

He has bars installed in front of the windows, the doors are made burglarproof, an air filter is installed. He locks his son in his room with a coded lock and only gives him food that is guaranteed safe. His extreme care and oppressive responsibility gradually turn into pure insanity.

Peter Terrin forces the reader through this gradual process, which evolves from suppressed sorrow, via an unbearable sense of responsibility, to the unreasonable anxiety and desperation that causes Victor’s life to tragically disintegrate.

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World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights recently sold: Actes Sud (France), Liebeskind (Germany) – Novel – 185 pages – 2003 – English sample, full French translation available 34

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Tommy Wieringa The Blessed Rita ‘His best book.’ ‘Masterpiece.’

160.000 copies sold, Bookspot Critics’ and Readers’ Literature Prize .

‘The masterly The Blessed Rita is at once both The Great Twente Novel and completely European. [...] It tells the story of a shrinking life in a shrinking region—but Wieringa’s version of that familiar story feels like the ultimate one.’ ***** NRC Handelsblad ‘It is his best book, his master hand has bested itself again. The depth is deeper, the views stretch farther. His style approaches perfection, or surpasses it.’ ***** Algemeen Dagblad ‘He writes like a fearless showboat in a bar, tethering his listeners to his every word.’ **** de Morgen/de Volkskrant His whole life, Paul Krüzen has lived with his father in an old, haunted farmhouse, not far from the German border. Where once his father took care of him, now he takes care of his father. In those fifty years, they have seen their village change drastically. The world is on the move: the Chinese now run the bars and restaurants in Mariënveen, while Russians, Bulgarians and Poles have become a familiar presence.. The great change began with a the arrival of a Russian pilot who escaped the Soviet Union in a crop duster and crashed in a cornfield behind their house at the height of the Cold War. This triggered a chain of events from which Paul Krüzen and his father have never fully recovered. The Blessed Rita is an enchanting memento for those left behind and an ode to those wanting to transcend themselves.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Scribe (UK & ANZ), Éditions Stock (France), Iperborea (Italy), Brombergs (Sweden), Hanser (Germany), Jelenkor (Hungary) American rights handled for De Bezige Bij by Inkwell – Novel – 286 pages – October 2017

Full English and German translation available 35

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Stefan Buijsman Pluses and Minuses The use of math when you never calculate anything Fifteen licenses sold after the Frankfurt Book Fair ‘Stefan Buijsman is Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, but with much better social skills, a man of immeasurable capacities and way intelligence.’ Svenska Dagbladet

above

average

Thousands of years ago the inhabitants of Mesopotamia became the first to use numbers. Since then, mathematics has been unstoppable. It’s behind almost everything, from search engines to cruise control, from coffee-makers to timetables. But now that we hardly ever need to do arithmetic any longer, how relevant is mathematics to everyday life? Pluses and Minuses demonstrates which role mathematics plays in the human endeavour. It begins with the mathematical skills we all possess from birth and arrives at the many applications of mathematics today. It turns out that if we don’t understand the ideas behind those applications we find ourselves side-lined in situations where they don’t work as we want them to. Buijsman answers questions such as: What is life like without numbers? Does mathematics add anything? How important are integrals? Is the usefulness of mathematics mere chance? How can we get a grip on uncertainty? Can mathematics help us to treat cancer more effectively? Stefan Buijsman makes connections between philosophy, psychology and history, while explaining the wonderful world of mathematics for absolutely everyone.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Natur och Kultur (Sweden), Penguin (USA), Weidenfeld & Nicolson (UK), Text (ANZ), Beck (Germany), Vuibert (France), Alianza (Spain), Ponte alle grazie (Italy), Libri (Hungary), ZNAK (Poland), Domingo (Turkey), Woongjin ThinkBig (South-Korea), United Sky (China), China Times (Taiwan), NHK (Japan) – Popular science – 201 pages – October 2018 – English sample translation and synopsis available 36

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Alicja Gescinska At Home in Music Gescinska throws herself into a major theme of her work and philosophy: music Shortlisted for the Socrates Cup 2019 ‘Alicja Gescinska gives us a lucid and engaging account of this most mysterious of arts, celebrating music and its vital place in our society, while gently introducing us to her very personal philosophy. The result is a delightful treatment of a delightful subject, which all thinking people should read.’ Roger Scruton

Does music improve human beings and their communities? Philosophers have examined that question over many years with great scepticism. Plato warned that music can bring about dangerous changes in society. Centuries later, Adorno pointed to the damaging power of jazz, which he believed made for tame citizens. Alicja Gescinska is convinced that music is more uplifting than it is pernicious. It can play an important part in our personal and moral development. We dwell too little on this nowadays. In schools there is hardly any room left for music, and in daily life we see it mainly as a source of relaxation, distraction or consolation. In her lucid essay, Gescinska demonstrates convincingly that music is more a foundation than an ornament to our existence. Music allows us to come home to ourselves and creates a dwelling place for us in the world.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Siruela (Spain) – Music, Philosophy – October 2018 – 96 pages – Full English translation available 37

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Paul Scheffer The Shape of Freedom Scheffer discusses a major issue of our times: how to deal with borders

‘Scheffer wants to accumulate the facts first, and talk after: A clear and well-founded plea. He addresses the future of the European Union, that razed its internal borders but hasn’t sufficiently protected its outside borders yet.’ Trouw Ever since Paul Scheffer visited the Berlin Wall as an eighteen-year-old, he has been intrigued by borders, continually contemplating their value and significance. In response to the refugee crisis, the departure of the British from the European Union and the wall President Trump wants to build at the Mexican border, Scheffer has organized and further developed his ideas. For him there is no freedom without form; an open society cannot function without a border. It is the only way to guarantee citizens’ rights and solidarity. Drawing upon history, philosophy, geography and sociology, Scheffer analyses presentday problems including migration, protectionism and terrorism. In doing so he draws firm conclusions about the future of Europe. The Shape of Freedom is an urgent book of huge contemporary relevance for anyone interested in current affairs.

World rights: World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Polity Press (World English), Hanser Verlag (Germany) – Current affairs – September 2018 – 224 pages – English sample translation available 38

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David Van Reybrouck Odes The author of Congo and Against Elections shows his mastery of the ode with stimulating prose about an expansive range of topics No writer commands the art of the ode like David Van Reybrouck.

Since early 2015 he has regularly sung the praises of something, someone or someplace on the website of in-depth news website De Correspondent. Be it the ex, the spring, Leonard Cohen, the cleaning lady, failure, Kofi Annan, or, of course, love, in his subtle and poignant odes he drops his guard completely. Van Reybrouck’s pieces have been shared many times over and bring thousands of readers moments of tranquillity, astonishment and beauty. In Odes they come together for the first time.

Ode to the most beautiful human being Remembering Lobsang Chokta Let me tell you about the best man I have ever met.

It was a year and a half ago.

And I have only known him for a week.

We met on the day of my 42nd anniversary and he gave me the strangest birthday present, probably because he did not know it was my birthday: a booklet with the names, pictures, biographies and last words of young Tibetans who in the past couple of years had set themselves to fire, to protest against China’s policy of occupation. ‘There are more than 120 now,’ he said with a soft smile, ‘two of my cousins did it.’

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Rights sold: Suhrkamp (Germany), Actes Sud (France) 208 pages – November 2018 – English sample translation available 39

SUCCESSFUL TITLES NON-FICTION

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Paul Verhaeghe Intimacy Are you a body or do you have a body? A unique analysis of current thinking on intimacy by one of today’s sharpest minds

‘Whether you agree with Verhaeghe or not, it’s a fact that he’s once again written a rich, successful and erudite book. A typical Verhaeghe.’ Trouw According to Paul Verhaeghe, intimacy is based first of all on a relationship with yourself and only then on relationships with others. Our relationship with our bodies lays the foundation not only for intimacy but for our mental and physical health.

Nowadays, unfortunately, that relationship is characterized by embarrassment, a result of the conviction that we are never beautiful or healthy enough. In Intimacy Verhaeghe shows that our era is urgently in need of a new form of self-care, in which we coincide more closely with ourselves.

He rejects the classic divide between body and mind, helping us to look at ourselves and the world in a new way.

World rights: De Bezige Bij – Option publishers: Kunstmann (Germany), Scribe (United Kingdom, ANZ), Sciencebooks (South-Korea), Sangya Culture Media Company (China) Psychology – 256 pages – November 2018 – English sample translation available 40

de bezige bij, thomas rap & cargo present at the fair

Mark Beumer

Francien Schuursma Publisher De Bezige Bij

Editor-in-chief non-fiction De Bezige Bij

Peter van der Zwaag

Arend Hosman

Marjolein Schurink

Catharina Schilder

Saartje Schwachรถfer

Chris Kooi

Director De Bezige Bij; Thomas Rap; Cargo

Editor-in-chief translated fiction De Bezige Bij

Haye Koningsveld

Publisher Thomas Rap

Editor Thomas Rap

Publisher Cargo

Editor Thomas Rap

Marijke Nagtegaal

Senior rights manager De Bezige Bij; Thomas Rap; Cargo

THO MA S RA P

Editor De Bezige Bij; Cargo

Uta Matten

Rights manager De Bezige Bij; Thomas Rap; Cargo

C ARG O

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