Newsletter Foreign Rights December 2012

Newsletter Foreign Rights De Bezige Bij, Thomas Rap, Cargo and Balans December 2012 Sytze van der Zee – Pain. A biography * A description of pain in its many forms

Sold to Knaus Verlag (Germany) • English material available • Non-fiction, 271 pages The management of pain is a relatively young discipline within medical science. Scientists did not start looking at pain until the 1960s. Until then, pain relief was usually left to neurosurgeons, who often did little more than sever nerve bundles. This approach was discredited in 1959 by Amsterdam-based Professor Willem Noordenbos, who established that this only increases the pain.

Sytze van der Zee studied the phenomenon of pain in all its forms. He explored the historical views of pain, examined what happens in the body when somebody is in pain, attended operations at pain clinics and compared various methods of treatment including alternative ones. He also spoke to chronic pain sufferers and those who experience no pain at all, SM practitioners and athletes going through the pain barrier.

Sytze van der Zee (1939) has published extensively on WWII and crime, including Potgieterlaan 7, Zuidwal, Anatomy of a Serial Killer and Outlaw. He has also worked as a correspondent for the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad, deputy editor of weekly magazine Elsevier and editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Het Parool.

On Pain. A biography: ‘A tour de force (…) [Pain. A biography] is bursting with moving, shocking and amazing stories.’ **** NRC Handelsblad About Van der Zee’s earlier work: ‘Very well written, enlightening and leading in the genre.’ – Telegraaf ‘Engrossing, properly documented and superbly written.’ – de Volkskant

De Bezige Bij / The Busy Bee • h.deinum@debezigebij.nl & m.nagtegaal@debezigebij.nl

Y.M. Dangre – March Rooms

* ‘His virtuosity is undeniable.’ – Jury Herman de Coninck Prize

World rights: De Bezige Bij • Novel, 343 pages • Second print run For the first time in his life, Ferdinand is alone. His friend Albert is in the hospital, dying. The only person to whom Ferdinand can turn during these blustery March days is Madeleine, of all people, the daughter who has always obstructed his relationship with Albert. What’s more, her mother, Celeste, has seized the opportunity and is trying to reoccupy a place in his life. While Albert’s condition worsens, Ferdinand sinks into deepest despair.

In an evocative style that shows his poetic abilities, Y.M. Dangre unravels their complex love life.

March Rooms is a subtle tale of old age and guilt, of the universal question that remains at the end of every human life: “Did I do the right thing?”

Y.M. Dangre (b. 1987) made a striking entrance into the world of letters. His novelistic debut came at the age of twenty-two with The Fruit of the Volcano, which won the Flemish Debut Award. One year later he published the collection of poems entitled Girl Who I Still Will, which won the C. Buddingh’ Prize. March Rooms is his second novel.

On March Rooms: ‘In a series of classic quarrel scenes, Dangre paints a remarkable picture of the relationship between Fernand and Albert. His work certainly does not trivialize the human condition (...) Dangre’s gift lies in the depiction of moments when people no longer know what they are doing or indeed why. Something of a prodigy.’ **** – NRC Handelsblad

De Bezige Bij / The Busy Bee • h.deinum@debezigebij.nl & m.nagtegaal@debezigebij.nl