The Following Story

Description

A slim, philosophical, beautifully-written novel by one of Europe's most brilliant living writers and winner of the European Literature Prize WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DAVID MITCHELL One morning Herman Mussert wakes up in a hotel room in Lisbon, where twenty years previously he slept with another man's wife. Yet he is quite certain that the night before he went to sleep as normal in his house in Amsterdam. And so Herman begins a physical journey and a metaphysical adventure, which will re-route him via past loves, through the pangs and pleasures of memory, and to the very heart of that crucial question- 'who am I?'.

Cees Nooteboom was born in The Hague in 1933. He is a poet and the author of several novels and travel books. He has journeyed through much of the world - he made his first voyage as a sailor to earn his passage from his native Holland to South America, and he has been travelling ever since. His first taste of international success was the Pegasus Prize for Rituals. The award in 1993 of the European Literature Prize, for The Following Story, confirmed his reputation in contemporary European world literature. His other works, including In the Dutch Mountains and A Song of Truth and Semblance, have been translated into many languages.

One of the greatest modern novelists -- A. S. Byatt The prose has such clarity, charm and lightness that you take to disorientation with pleasure -- Michael Ignatieff * Sunday Times * After years of distinction in his own country, Cees Nooteboom has commanded attention with this gentle, European Literature Prize-winning story * Independent * He is a thinker as much as a storyteller and brings astute insight to his evocation of character and imaginative intellectualism... Playful, deadly serious and achingly real... Nooteboom makes every word, every observation, not only count but also linger * Irish Times * Nooteboom writes beautifully. His prose is clean and precise without feeling sparse, and he manages to combine clarity with an intense lyricism... Part travelogue, part elegy, part love story, this is an exquisite little novel, and far more substantial than its 90 pages suggest * Guardian *