Winner of the 2012 Libris Literature Prize - the Dutch equivalent of the Booker Prize - and a bestseller in Holland and Germany, this is a mesmerising rendition of grief and love.
On Pentecost 2010, Tonio - the only son of writer Adri van der Heijden - is hit by a car. He dies of his injuries that same day. Tonio is only 21. His parents are faced with the monstrous task of forging ahead with their lives in the knowledge that their only child will never again come home, never again stop by just to catch up, never again go out shopping with his mother and bitch about passers-by, never again ask his father: 'Did you work well today?' Never again.
Adri van der Heijden is driven by two compelling questions: what happened to Tonio during the final days and hours before the accident, and how could this accident happen? This search takes in various eyewitnesses, friends, police officers, doctors, and the mysterious Jenny - who turns out to have played a crucial role in Tonio's life during those final weeks.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
'Astonishing. Van der Heijden has produced a moving, virtuoso memorial to his son.' * Het Parool * 'Raw; hard, but beautiful.' * De Standard * 'A monument to love and suffering: the author A.F.Th. van der Heijden has written a requiem for his son. Tonio is one of the most powerful, compelling expressions of the human spirit in the face of its opposite, death and the void.' * Die Welt * 'The pages on which Van der Heijden watches his son's last cycle ride with a loving, anxious gaze, and his powerless attempts to protect him from that ugly death, are among the most beautiful things that anyone could write. It's obscene, but true.' * De Groene Amsterdammer * 'The most touching book he has ever written, a tribute to his son, a quest for the fragile essence of parenthood.' * Haarlems Dagblad * 'Recording the death [of his son] becomes both a duty to Tonio and part of the struggle of grieving, and van der Heijden finds he cannot not write about it ... these two strands are woven together skilfully, and beautifully at times.' -- Weekend Australian * Weekend Australian *
Auflage
Sprache
Verlagsort
Editions-Typ
Produkt-Hinweis
Broschur/Paperback
Klebebindung
Maße
Höhe: 234 mm
Breite: 153 mm
Dicke: 27 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-925228-07-6 (9781925228076)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Adri van der Heijden (b. 1951) is one of Holland's greatest and most highly awarded authors. His oeuvre consists mainly of two sagas: The Toothless Time and Homo Duplex. He has also written four other requiems, one of which about his father's death, His Father's Ashes.
Tonio won three of Holland's most prestigious literary awards: the Constantijn Huygens Prize, the 2012 Libris Literature Prize, and the 2012 NS Reader's Award for the Best Book of the Year. It has been a major bestseller in Holland and in Germany, and this edition marks its first appearance in English. Jonathan Reeder, a native of New York and longtime resident of Amsterdam, enjoys a dual career as a literary translator and performing musician. Alongside his work as a professional bassoonist, he translates opera libretti and essays on classical music, as well as contemporary Dutch fiction. Literary translations include Conny Braam's WWI novel The Cocaine Salesman, Peter Buwalda's bestseller Bonita Avenue and the comic thriller A Sleepless Summer by Bram Dehouck.
