Search results for ""Author David Colmer""

Warning: This story is narrated by a gorilla. He is plucked from the jungle. He learns to chat and passes the ultimate test: a cocktail party. Eventually he is moved to an amusement park, where he acts in a play about the history of civilisation. But as the gorilla becomes increasingly aware of human frailties, he must choose between his instincts and his training, between principles and self-preservation. ----- Why Peirene chose to publish this book: 'This is Peirene's first book narrated by an ape. Animal fables are usually not my thing. It needed Belgian deadpan humour to convince me otherwise. Mixing Huxley's Brave New World with Orwell's Animal Farm, the fast-paced plot leaves behind images that play in your mind long after you have closed the book.' Meike Ziervogel, Publisher

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THE TIMES HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR A FINANCIAL TIMES TRANSLATED FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR __________ It is 1941, and Antwerp is in the grip of Nazi occupation. Young policeman Wilfried Wils has no intention of being a hero - but war has a way of catching up with people. When his idealistic best friend draws him into the growing resistance movement, and an SS commander tries to force him into collaborating, Wilfried's loyalties become horribly, fatally torn. As the beatings, destruction and round-ups intensify across the city, he is forced into an act that will have consequences he could never have imagined. A searing portrayal of a man trying to survive amid the treachery, compromises and moral darkness of occupation, Will asks what any of us would risk to fight evil.

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THE TIMES CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK 'This funny, award-winning novel by Dutch writer Woltz is original and touching — and has two wonderfully memorable characters…’ Sally Morris, Daily Mail It’s the first day of the holidays and Sam is roaming the island of Texel, imagining what it’d feel like to be the last person on earth. Then, like a whirlwind, 12-year-old islander Tess swoops into his life. Sam’s only option is to go along for the ride. Soon he’s dancing the waltz, burying a pet canary and coming up with an especially weird plan to help Tess find her father, who doesn’t even know she exists. Along the way, Sam discovers the true meaning of family and what it is to be alive. One thing’s for sure – this is a holiday he’ll never forget.

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Subversive, visual, and bold, Curaçao-born Dutch Radna Fabias’ explosive debut collection Habitus marks the entry of a genre-altering poet. Habitus is a collection full of thrilling sensory images, lines in turn grim and enchanting which move from the Caribbean island of Curaçao to the immigrant experience of the Netherlands. Fabias’ intrepid masterpiece explores issues of racism, neo-colonialism, poverty, and sexism with a heartbreaking rhythm and endless nuance. Broken into three parts (“View with coconut,” “Rib,” and “Demonstrable effort made”), Habitus explores the profound struggles of melancholic longing, womanhood, religion, and migration. This ambitious, powerful, and compassionate collection has emerged, cheering on ambiguity, fluidity, and a lyrical ego on a quest to find its home.

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Tibble is a reporter. He only ever writes about cats, and he's about to be fired. Minou is a young woman who has moved into Tibble's flat. She hates dogs, likes rooftops, loves the fishmonger, and happens to have been, until very recently, a cat. With her feline friends listening out for all the local human news, is Minou the answer to all Tibble's problems-or just the beginning of them? A hilarious, charming story of cats, dogs, and learning to dare.

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Simone Atangana Bekono's poems are vivid and arresting, with the feeling of letters or diary entries. In nine breath-taking streams of consciousness, the poet explore race, gender and sexuality, addressing the social stigmatization of race and gender and invoking empathy and human connection in a voice that is both confident and innovative.

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On the eve of the Second World War a public attorney, devastated because his Jewish lover has fled without him, runs over a young girl. He is torn by grief at the loss of his girlfriend and guilt about the accident - which is shrouded in a mystery that he attempts to unravel while the world around him collapses. In the meantime, he is watched over by a guardian angel, who whispers him warnings, and by a devil, who does the same... A Guardian Angel Recalls is a thrilling and provocative war novel, from one of the greatest Dutch authors of the twentieth century.

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The Dutch poet, anthologist and translator Menno Wigman died in 2018 at just fifty-one, several years after being diagnosed with a rare heart condition likely caused by an allergic reaction suffered in his adolescence. This memorial pamphlet is intended as a tribute to the poet and as a companion to Window-Cleaner Sees Paintings, my selection of Wigman's poetry published by Arc in 2016.

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In his first English-language collection, Moroccan-Dutch poet Mustafa Stitou marks his position as one of the most important poets of his generation. Two Half Faces collects work from across Stitou’s career as he grapples in his poetry with his position in a changing reality. Stitou brilliantly parlays his relationship with his two homelands into a chronicle of identity, producing a vital account of cultural friction in poems that range from narrative to lyrical. Humor and seriousness go hand in hand, and the everyday combines with the surreal and the sublime to form a vibrant tension. This collection charts Stitou’s progress as a poet of emotion and intellect, one who poignantly illuminates the ambiguities of cultural identities, and the intersections of our inner and outer worlds.

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It is 1941, and Antwerp is in the grip of Nazi occupation. Young policeman Wilfried Wils has no intention of being a hero - but war has a way of catching up with people. When his idealistic best friend draws him into the growing resistance movement, and an SS commander tries to force him into collaborating, Wilfried's loyalties become horribly, fatally torn. As the beatings, destruction and round-ups intensify across the city, he is forced into an act that will have consequences he could never have imagined. A searing portrayal of a man trying to survive amid the treachery, compromises and moral darkness of occupation, Will asks what any of us would risk to fight evil.

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THE TIMES CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK 'This funny, award-winning novel by Dutch writer Woltz is original and touching — and has two wonderfully memorable characters…’ Sally Morris, Daily Mail It’s the first day of the holidays and Sam is roaming the island of Texel, imagining what it’d feel like to be the last person on earth. Then, like a whirlwind, 12-year-old islander Tess swoops into his life. Sam’s only option is to go along for the ride. Soon he’s dancing the waltz, burying a pet canary and coming up with an especially weird plan to help Tess find her father, who doesn’t even know she exists. Along the way, Sam discovers the true meaning of family and what it is to be alive. One thing’s for sure – this is a holiday he’ll never forget.

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THE SUNDAY TIMES AND INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER'The ultimate Holocaust testimony.' HEATHER MORRIS, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka's JourneyAfterword by JOHN BOYNE, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas_______________Eddy de Wind, a Dutch doctor and psychiatrist, was shipped to Auschwitz with his wife Friedel, whom he had met and married at the Westerbork labour camp in the Netherlands. At Auschwitz, they made it through the brutal selection process and were put to work. Each day, each hour became a battle for survival.For Eddy, this meant negotiating with the volatile guards in the medical barracks. For Friedel, it meant avoiding the Nazis' barbaric medical experiments. As the end of the war approached and the Russian Army drew closer, the last Nazis fled, taking many prisoners with them, including Friedel. Eddy hid under a pile of old clothes and stayed behind. Finding a notebook and pencil, he began to write with furious energy about his experiences.Last Stop Auschwitz is an extraordinary account of life as a prisoner, a near real-time record of the daily struggle to survive but also of the flickering moments of joy Eddy and Friedel found in each other. Documenting the best and the worst of humanity, it is a unique and timeless story that reminds us of what we as humans are capable of, but that there is hope, even in Hell. _______________WHAT READERS ARE SAYING:'It's heart-wrenching, but there are pockets of resistance, rays of hope that shine through.''Powerful and ultimately uplifting... with courage and strength you can survive anything.''This is an important work. We must never forget.'

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Cees Nooteboom wrote the poems that make up Monk's Eye on two islands: he began them on the Dutch island of Schiermonnikoog and finished them on the Spanish island of Minorca, where he has spent summers for decades. The poems--which can be read individually or, all together, as the record of a poet's life--are about the two islands. But they're also about islands as an archetype, about the serenity that we can find on beaches and amid dunes, the sea sweeping imperturbably around us. Accompanied by Sunandini Banerjee's collages, the poems in this volume are rich in allusion; they address the past, memories, illusions, dreams, and the heart of all poetry--which Nooteboom locates in the opening line of Plato's Phaedrus, when Socrates, walking with his admirer, asks, "My dear Phaedrus, whence came you, and whither are you going?"

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I Wish pairs writing with a gallery of portraits inspired by old-fashioned photographs - faces staring out at us with the serious, veiled expressions of a bygone time. Scattered among the paintings are young children, men and women, and babies, speaking through Toon Tellegen's yearning language. Like dozens of confessions poured from the page, the writing presents a glittering kaleidoscope of wishes, from imagined feats of heroism to reciprocated human love.

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A partisan fighting with the Red Army in Germany comes across a grand, abandoned house, seemingly untouched by the devastation sweeping the country. Exhausted, he falls asleep in the living room, but wakes to find a German patrol marching up the garden path. His only hope is to pose as the house's owner, but how will he keep up the pretence when the real owner returns? Dazzling, dark and scorchingly violent, with the breakneck pace of a thriller, this timeless classic is a vivid depiction of what happens when the mask of decency is cast aside in the savagery of war.

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A story of staggering scope and drama, Revolusi is the masterful and definitive account of the epic revolution that sparked the decolonisation of the modern world.'Astounding . . . history at its best' Yuval Harari'Utterly compelling' Financial Times'Superb' GuardianOn a sunny Friday morning in August 1945, a handful of tired people raised a homemade cotton flag and on behalf of 68 million compatriots announced the birth of a new nation: Indonesia.Four million civilians had died during the Japanese wartime occupation that ousted its Dutch colonial regime. Another 200,000 people would lose their lives in the astonishingly brutal conflict that ensued - as the Dutch used savage violence to reassert their control, and as Britain and America became embroiled in pacifying Indonesia's guerrilla war of resistance: the 'Revolusi'. It was not until December 1949 that the newly created United Nations finally brought the conflict an end - and with it, 350 years of colonial rule - setting a precedent that would reshape the world.Drawing on hundreds of interviews and eye-witness testimonies, David Van Reybrouck turns this vast and complex story into an utterly gripping narrative that is alive with human detail at every turn. A landmark publication, Revolusi shows Indonesia's struggle for independence to be one of the defining dramas of the twentieth century.'A magnificent fusion of oral history, sparkling analysis, and historical wisdom. Revolusi has it all: a masterpiece' SEBASTIAN MALLABY'One of the most unlikely and astonishing sagas ... a towering achievement' THOMAS MEANEY'A magisterial but gripping account of events of urgent importance to us now' JASON BURKE'At once vast and intimate, a history in colour' LAKSMI PAMUNTJAK'A masterly display of the historian’s craft' J M COETZEE'A wonderful and important book' PETER FRANKOPAN

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A story of staggering scope and drama, Revolusi is the masterful and definitive account of the epic revolution that sparked the decolonisation of the modern world.'Astounding . . . history at its best' Yuval Harari'Utterly compelling' Financial Times'Superb' GuardianOn a sunny Friday morning in August 1945, a handful of tired people raised a homemade cotton flag and on behalf of 68 million compatriots announced the birth of a new nation: Indonesia.Four million civilians had died during the Japanese wartime occupation that ousted its Dutch colonial regime. Another 200,000 people would lose their lives in the astonishingly brutal conflict that ensued - as the Dutch used savage violence to reassert their control, and as Britain and America became embroiled in pacifying Indonesia's guerrilla war of resistance: the 'Revolusi'. It was not until December 1949 that the newly created United Nations finally brought the conflict an end - and with it, 350 years of colonial rule - setting a precedent that would reshape the world.Drawing on hundreds of interviews and eye-witness testimonies, David Van Reybrouck turns this vast and complex story into an utterly gripping narrative that is alive with human detail at every turn. A landmark publication, Revolusi shows Indonesia's struggle for independence to be one of the defining dramas of the twentieth century.'A magnificent fusion of oral history, sparkling analysis, and historical wisdom. Revolusi has it all: a masterpiece' SEBASTIAN MALLABY'One of the most unlikely and astonishing sagas ... a towering achievement' THOMAS MEANEY'A magisterial but gripping account of events of urgent importance to us now' JASON BURKE'At once vast and intimate, a history in colour' LAKSMI PAMUNTJAK'A masterly display of the historian’s craft' J M COETZEE'A wonderful and important book' PETER FRANKOPAN

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A brooding meditation on violence by a classic post-war Dutch writer who has drawn comparisons to Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut. An Untouched House is a mesmerising, dark meditation on the legacy of war. An interloper and opportunist makes a grand house his own in the chaos of a war-torn countryside, only to find himself involved with occupying forces and enraged locals.

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After first making her mark as a compelling performer, Belgian poet Charlotte Van den Broeck was acclaimed as one of Europe’s most innovative and original new voices in poetry following the publication of her first collection Chameleon in 2015. Her first English translation combines her debut volume with her second book Nachtroer (2017), its untranslatable title the name of all-night shop in Antwerp where she lives. Chameleon is a set of apparently naïve but knowingly ironic, playful and subversive poems which trace a girl’s search for a woman’s identity, a coming-of-age exploration of body and language drawing on memories, shapes and landscapes. In Nachtroer her poems take a nighttime journey through heartbreak, insomnia and the hectic flow of daily life, driven by a desire for disappearance, displacement and dissolution. Chameleon ends with taking to the ocean. Nachtroer’s last poem is about building a boat for such a voyage. Chameleon | Nachtroer sets the two books afloat in English.

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Every year, a large number of people living in our towns and cities - the homeless, suicides, illegal immigrants, junkies, drug 'mules', victims of crime and, above all, old people living alone - are found dead. Sometimes, they are not discovered for weeks or months, and it is often hard to ascertain who they are. Their funerals are held without relatives or friends and acquaintances being present; the only people in attendance are the pall-beares, perhaps someone from the Department of Social Services, the cemetery management and the funeral director. In Amsterdam in 2002, the poet and artist F Starik, deeply moved by the desolation of these solitary funerals, initiated 'The Lonely Funeral' project and seven years later in Antwerp, the Flemish poet Maarten Inghels set up a project of the same name. The idea of the project was to establish a network of poets who would write a personal poem for the deceased person based on research into their life and read it out at their funeral as an affirmation of their existence. To date, well over 300 'lonely funerals' have been attended by poets in both cities and volumes of prose and poetry about some of these forgotten lives have been published in Amsterdam and Antwerp respectively. Arc Publications, together with the Viennese publisher Edition Korrespondezen and the editor Stefan Wieczorek, have made a selection of prose and poems about 31 'forgotten lives' from these two anthologies. What is known of, or can be found out about, each individual's life and manner of death is set out in a moving prose piece which also describes the funeral itself - for the Amsterdam funerals this is written by F. Starik and for the Antwerp funerals by Maarten Inghels - and this is followed by the poem for the deceased, with 20 of the Netherlands' and Flanders' leading poets being represented. This is by turns a moving, shocking and very necessary volume: poets are not social workers but they do have the power to change attitudes to society's outcasts. These last salutations to people the poet has never known and never will, whose lives at the end were invisible, remind us that we are a community and that we have responsibility for each other, even after death. As F. Starik writes in his preface to the book: "We do not know to whom we say goodbye, so we feel no pain. But everyone - and this is the point - every person deserves respect."

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A thought-provoking illustrated storybook in which the forest animals discover that anger doesn't always have to be angry In ten thoughtful, philosophical, absurd tales by master storyteller Toon Tellegen, the forest animals-from squirrel to scarab beetle-spend their days as friends do, with birthday parties, writing letters, visiting, dancing, or sometimes all alone. Each day brings emotions that are always worth exploring, although not always easy, and each story reveals new layers through the expressive, touching and funny illustrations of Marc Boutavant. This wry and nuanced collection of stories gently shows that anger, in all its shapes and sizes, is a natural, necessary and often misunderstood emotion.

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Good parents everywhere know the tension of wanting our kids to be curious, to have rich experiences and friends...but to be perfectly safe while doing it. Little Fox knows all about it! His father (in classic picture book fashion) warns him of the danger everywhere. But Little Fox still frolics with butterflies, scavenges for food, and searches for new friends. Then one day he takes a tumble, bumps his head, and starts dreaming of things that reflect both the beauty he's seen and the scary things he's heard. Marije Tolman's ingenious illustrations use a fresh technique that FEELS like a movie and a dream, starring the cheerful, bright orange Little Fox on grainy mixed media landscapes of blue and green. And when Little Fox wakes up, he's perhaps a little wiser, but still every bit as curious and full of life.

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Cees Nooteboom, best known for his novel The Following Story,is one of the most distinguished and significant authors living in the Netherlands today. Self-Portrait of an Other is one of the most unique and innovative works in his oeuvre. Written in response to and published together with a series of drawings by the Berlin-based artist Max Neumann, the book draws on Nooteboom's personal reflections--his arsenal of memories, dreams, fantasies, landscapes, stories and nightmares--and presents a set of prose poems that complements and echoes Neumann's work. Full of striking scenes and disturbing images, the poems, driven by the logic of dreams, create the self-portrait of the title.

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Pluck has been driving all over town in his little red tow truck, looking for a home. When he finds out there's a room going free in the Pill Building he goes straight there and moves in. Right away he makes lots of friends, including Zaza the cockroach and Dolly the pigeon. Now his adventures can begin... Blending realistic characters with the fantastic, full of adventure and humour, Tow-Truck Pluck is an unforgettably offbeat children's classic in the vein of Roald Dahl's The BFG, and one of the Netherlands most popular children's books of all time.

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Join Panda and Squirrel in nine funny, wise and thoughtful stories about the meaning of friendship by two world greats of children’s literature. Perfect for emerging readers. Panda and Squirrel have an unbreakable friendship. They can’t live without each other and do everything together: lie on the rocks to look at the moon, take walks, play games. One of their journeys lasts for only two steps, another day they discover a newly hatched duckling. Sometimes they argue but they always make up again. This is a friendship for any day: roaring, quiet, grumbling, snoring...always. This beautiful hardback storybook, with full-color illustrations throughout, features down-to-earth and warm-hearted friendship stories that reach straight from the soul of one six-year-old to another. Perfect for emerging readers or for reading aloud together, it’s a book to read again and again. Written by Ed Franck, one of Belgium’s most important and innovative children’s writers, and illustrated by Thé Tjong-Khing, a world-leading illustrator for children, whose many accolades include nomination for the Hans Christian Andersen Award. Translated from the Dutch edition by David Colmer.

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Have you ever had a pet? Or have you ever stopped to look at all of the small things in your home that make up your life? From wet socks to being tucked into bed at night, and strongly featuring one inspiring guppy fish with real staying power - Super Guppy stays close to home, but it's a home full of fun, jokes, and surprising adventure.

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