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Stefan Hertmans War and Turpentine About the poignant life of a grandfather, wwi and a devastating love Shortly before his death in the 1980s, Stefan Hertmans’ grandfather gave him a couple of old notebooks. For years he was afraid to open them, but when he did he stumbled across some unexpected secrets. His grandfather’s life was marked by his impoverished childhood in pre-1900 Ghent, by gruesome experiences as a soldier on the front during wwi and by a great love who died young. For the rest of his life he converted his grief into tranquil paintings. In an attempt to get to the bottom of his grandfather’s life Hertmans wrote down the memories he had of the man. He quotes from the diaries and analyses the paintings. Hertmans tells the story with the kind of imaginative power only great writers possess, and in a form that leaves an indelible impression. War and Turpentine is a poignant search for a life that coincided with the tragic events of the 20th century and is an attempt to give a posthumous, almost mythical expression to that life. World rights: De Bezige Bij • English sample translation and synopsis available Winner of the Flemish Culture Award for Literature, shortlisted for the Libris Literature Prize, the Golden Book Owl and the Davidsfonds History Prize Rights sold: Hanser Berlin (Germany), Gallimard (France), Alfred A. Knopf (North America) Harvill Secker (UK) Text (ANZ) Marsilio (Italy) People’s Press (Denmark) Heliks (Serbia) Pax (Norway) Norstedts (Sweden), Fraktura (Croatia), Európa (Hungary) • Fiction 334 pages 43