Hella S. Haasse
Fenrir: A Long Weekend in the Ardennes (Fenrir: Een lang weekend in de Ardennen)
A thrilling and dark tale of wolves and murder
Hella Haasse’s popularity with a wide range of readers may have contributed to her not being included in the list of great post-war Dutch authors; nevertheless she does deserve a place among the likes of Claus, Hermans and Mulisch. Regardless of the genre in which she writes, she has always remained herself, always driven by a certain inquisitiveness and astonishment about the world around us. That world has often been a world of the past, such as that of Charles D’Orléans in In a Dark Wood Wandering, or colonial pre-war Batavia (now Indonesia), which is described so beautifully in Heren van de thee (The Tea Merchants). The main characters are often writers or poets, who are in their own way outsiders.
Hella Haasse is still remarkably active. In 1994, she published the novella Transit, which had a circulation of many hundreds of thousands as a free gift during the Dutch book week. In 1997, Zwanen schieten (Shooting Swans) appeared: an ingenious cocktail of an essay on writing and imagination, an autobiographical sketch and fiction. And this year brought a new novel Fenrir, a crime novel with a dark undertone.
‘Matthias Crone had gone to the concert on 25 September because he had read that the pianist kept wolves in her back garden,’ reads the first, infectious sentence of the novel. Ever since he was a young boy, Matthias had been interested in wolves and the associated North European mythology. It turns out that this pianist is keeping a private wolf reserve in the Ardennes. Matthias goes there with his friend Rollo, to be adopted by the inhabitants of the estate who all have their own secrets. There is a peculiar tension, which ultimately leads to murder. The shadow of the past casts a disturbing spell on the whole affair. Fenrir is more than a thrilling book: it is also a sinister look at the nocturnal side of existence.
Publisher
Querido
Singel 262
NL - 1016 AC Amsterdam
TEL. +31 20 551 12 62
FAX +31 20 639 19 68
E-mail: rights@querido.nl
Website: www.querido.nl
Publishing details
Fenrir: Een lang weekend in de Ardennen (2000, 163 pp)
37,500 copies sold
Biography
Hella S. Haasse (b. 1918) was born in Batavia, modern-day Jakarta. She moved to the Netherlands after secondary school. In 1945 she debuted with a collection of poems, entitled Stroomversnelling (Momentum). She made her name three years later with the novella given out to mark the Dutch Book Week, Oeroeg. As with much of her work, this tale of the friendship between a Dutch and an Indonesian boy has gained the status of a classic in the Netherlands. Titles such as Het woud der verwachting (In a Dark Wood Wandering, 1949), Een nieuwer testament (Threshold of Fire, 1966) and Mevrouw Bentinck of Onverenigbaarheid van karakter (Mrs Bentinck or Irreconcilable in Character, 1978) have been greatly enjoyed by several generations. In 1992 she published another novel about her home country, the Dutch East Indies: the highly acclaimed Heren van de thee (The Tea Merchants). Her work is characterised by an adequate and well thought out vocabulary and a flexible sentence structure. Her non-historical novels and stories are often about ordinary people who are intensely confronted by their choices and circumstances: De ingewijden (The Insiders, 1957), Huurders en onderhuurders (Tenants and Sub-tenants, 1971), Berichten van het blauwe huis (Messages from the Blue House, 1986), Fenrir (2000) and Sleuteloog (Eye of the Key, 2002). Haasse also published various collections of essays, including Uitgesproken, opgeschreven (Recited, Recorded, 1996) and Zwanen schieten (Shooting Swans, 1998). In 2006 her short stories were brought together in Het tuinhuis (The Garden House). Haasse has received several prestigious literary awards, among which the P.C. Hooft Prize (1983) and the Dutch Literature Prize (Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren, 2004), and her work has been translated into many languages.
Quotes
An exciting book, which unleashes an avalanche of questions.
Robert Anker, Het Parool
What Haasse shows with such verve is how sincere people constantly disagree with each other – actually about everything.
Janet Luis, NRC Handelsblad
Translations
- Un long week-end dans les Ardennes. Arles: Actes Sud, Leméac, 2001
- La pianista e i lupi. Milano: Iperborea, 2003
- Un long week-end dans les Ardennes. Arles: Actes Sud, 2006
- Continued...