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

Newsletter Foreign Rights De Bezige Bij, Thomas Rap, Cargo and Balans

Summer 2012

Tommy Wieringa - Caesarion * Great reviews in France, Germany and England

In our newsletter of June we presented to you Tommy Wieringa’s latest novel, Caesarion. Over 100,000 copies were sold in the Netherlands. Rights were sold to Germany (Hanser), England (Portobello) and France (Actes Sud). There have already been some great reviews: Germany: ‘Tommy Wieringa allows his characters to experience just about everything that is possible, even if it seems impossible.’ – Neue Zürcher Zeitung 'Tommy Wieringa has a special talent for being able to write a story so intense that it makes the reader cry, desperately try to control the tears, smile bravely and get curiously touched by the hardships and impositions of life, while reading the book to its end. Comforted. Something hidden between the lines is stronger than the grief.' – NDR Kultur 'These small objections, however, don’t detract from the author’s merit of having written a novel without hypocrisy and without too much sentimentality and which yet manages to touch deeply.' – Wiener Zeitung France: ‘Amazingly enough, Wieringa succeeds in telling us this story of solitude and rejection with humor and lyricism, introducing a character who strongly evokes the Kurtz of Heart of Darkness (or of Apocalypse Now), and thereby delivers a remarkable coming-of-age novel.’ – Libération ‘The contemporary American novel is based on this literary and moral ambition (and often marred by excessive naturalism). In France, no one seems capable of that. Houllebecq, when he tries, but he is more a satirist than a novelist… The ones who have successfully pursued this Grail in recent years (the list, however, is by no means exhaustive) are writers such as Roberto Bolaño in his The Savage Detectives, Sebald in Austerlitz, Coetzee in Disgrace and Philip Roth in My Life as a Man. From now on, however, to that list must be added the name of Tommy Wieringa: Caesarion, his second novel to be translated into French, has made it only modestly (much too modestly) onto the shelves of our bookstores, and it is a feast.’ – Le Figaro England: ‘Tommy Wieringa's ambitious novel, translated by Sam Garrett, is a brilliant exploration of the uneasy transition from adolescence into adulthood – the restlessness, yearning for stability, irrational decisions and erotic obsessions.’ – The Independent

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

Edzard Mik – Mont Blanc * Mik on top of his game in a blistering father-son novel

World rights: De Bezige Bij • Novel, 304 pages

A father, a son and a nephew climb the highest mountain in Europe. When the weather suddenly gets worse, disaster strikes. The nephew disappears into a crevasse and dies. Many years later, the son Ruben, now an experienced mountaineer and a father himself, recorded the dramatic climb in a book. But Ruben’s presentation of the facts is not always consistent with the memory of his father Hugo. During a second climb on the flanks of Mont Blanc the relationship between the father and son approaches the boiling point. When Ruben puts everything at stake, his father has to make a horrible choice. With Mont Blanc Edzard Mik has written a masterpiece. He has managed to combine the tingling excitement of mountaineering with the dramatic family history of a father, a mother and son trapped in an oppressive triangle. Edzard Mik (1960) was born in Groningen and lives with his wife and children in Amsterdam. He writes articles for Vrij Nederland and NRC Handelsblad about art, architecture, literature and theatre. His previous novel, Good Times, was on the longlist of the Libris Literature Prize. For Mont Blanc he did research in the Alps. About Mont Blanc: ‘An incredibly strong novel about parenting. (...) Without a doubt his best book. Better than ever, he succeeds in putting his evident expertise at the service of the theme he wants to investigate.’ – NRC Handelsblad ‘Mik's creativity and craftsmanship show themselves in the way he knows how to transfer an emotional state to a specific situation on a mountain. His imagination is self-evident and believable.’ – De Volkskrant ‘This is the success of Edzard Mik: he knows how to give every word, image and observation of Hugo a distinctive meaning.’ – De Groene Amsterdammer

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

Hella de Jonge - Jump * A candid story about love and freedom

Over 10,000 copies sold • World rights: De Bezige Bij • Novel, 336 pages

Jump is the intriguing life story of Hella de Jonge. With a great sense of style and composition, she tells about the different friendships in her life. She writes candidly about her artistic motives, about the courage to be herself and she reveals the war secret of her aunt. Jump is also the story about the unbreakable love between two true artists, their children and grandchildren. Hella de Jonge shows how a serious heart defect of one of them, a girl, has made her look upon life differently. Jump is an inspiring book about passion and nerve and a confirmation of her authorship. Hella de Jonge (b. 1949) studied art at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. Her work was exhibited in various art galleries and at the Amsterdam art fair pAn. In 2006 she published the autobiographical book Loose from the World. She is married to cabaret performer Freek de Jonge. On Jump: ‘Honest, frank and with sense for nuance’ – Friesch Dagblad ‘Hella de Jonge is absolutely unique’ – Nederlands Dagblad On Loose from the World: ‘A compelling autobiographical novel about her life, her struggles, her faults and her saviours, Freek and the children.' – Hanneke Groenteman ‘An awfully good book.’ – Humo ‘An unembellished tale.’ – The Guardian