Cossee london list 2015

David Attwell – J.M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing

252 pages, 70,000 words, to be published in 2015.

Rights sold to US (Viking Penguin), UK (Oxford

University Press), Australia (Text) and South Africa

(Jacana). Full English manuscript available.

David Attwell was the first to open J.M. Coetzee’s

personal archive at the Harry Ransom Centre in

Texas. He did some remarkable discoveries in the

155 boxes filled with several versions of the

famous novels and his personal notebooks. These

suggest that Coetzee’s writing and starting points

are more personal than we often think.

The Life of Writing gives us a behind-the-scenes

view of such literary masterpieces as Disgrace,

Waiting for the Barbarians, and Life & Times of Michael K. By comparing J.M.

Coetzee’s manuscripts at several stages of their development, we discover

some of the magic wielded by one of the world’s most important contemporary

writers. The Life of Writing is an essential study for all Coetzee readers and

provides a fascinating insight into the mind of the 2003 Nobel Prize winner. The

Life of Writing is also a unique book on the authorship of J.M. Coetzee that will

appeal to his devoted readers, those who appreciate good literature, and

writers who want to learn more about this fascinating creative process.

David Attwell (University of York) has written several books about and with

J.M. Coetzee (J.M. Coetzee: South Africa and the Politics of Writing (1993) and

Doubling the Point (1992)). He received the Leverhulme Trust fellowship for

this book and spent five weeks researching the 155 boxes of Coetzee’s literary

archive, currently available at the Harry Ransom Centre in the University of

Texas in Austin, USA. The Life of Writing is the first book to feature detailed

information from the various stages of J.M. Coetzee’s manuscripts.

Saskia Goldschmidt – The Rag Queen


During the roaring sixties, Koko travels through

Europe looking for clothes and spawns the

merchants with her charm and sturdiness. She is

successful and becomes a brand: Koko’s, queen of

the second hand glamour, known in Milan, Paris

and Berlin. She learned the tricks of the trade

from her mother when she was just a little girl.

When her mother would come home with yet the

next bad boyfriend, the silent Koko would retreat

into her fantasy world, surrounded by the doll’s

clothing she made herself.

When she’s sixteen she sees that the most

beautiful second hand dresses, evening gowns and party clothes made from

lace, velvet and silk are being sold by the kilo at the market. What a waste, she

thinks and when she leaves school she starts her own business. She buys old

clothes, makes small modifications and sells them as vintage clothes.

She has good taste and a keen eye for what people might like. Her stall at the

market is turned into a boutique shop which becomes the place to be for

fashionistas, fashion journalists and couturiers. But success in fashion is brittle

and fleeting and the competition is killing. It can crumble, drift or go up in

smoke from one day to the next. Fairytale and tragedy, portrait of an

enterprising woman, with The Rag Queen Saskia Goldschmidt shows us a world

that is familiar and foreign at the same time.

Saskia Goldschmidt (1954) studied at the Arts Academy Utrecht. Her debut

Obligatory Happy was extremely well received by press, book sellers and

readers and reprinted soon after its publication. The Hormone Factory was

reprinted several times, received great reviews and was soon after publication

sold to Germany (DTV), the US (The Other Press) and France (Gallimard). It was

rewritten for a 25-part audio drama and the film rights for the book are

currently under option.

Mariëtte Haveman – The House Behind the Willows

288 pages, 70,000 words, published in 2015.

English sample translation available.

1924. Roeland Te Wolde marries his young bride

Virginia who instantly succeeds in acquiring a

large order in modern wicker furniture for her

new husband’s family business. Roeland thinks

that at home his family will be proud of her. But

the small village of Werwolda is not what Virginia

expected it to be. From the moment she gets out

of her husband’s automobile, the mud gets hold

of her shoes. Grey and gloomy, surrounded by a

circle of children all dressed in the same drab

clothes.

Is it ethical to use this archaic and mysterious story in 2015 to sell a chic

vacation resort in Werwolda? In breathtaking scenes Mariëtte Haveman brings

to life lost times and remote areas. In The House Behind the Willows she

confronts us with the question how far we can go to remodel history and the

images of the past for commercial purposes.

‘The tension between the new age and old times is the main theme of this

novel and part of its charm.’ – Elsevier

‘Haveman has a fascinating style that brings both the past as the present to

life.’ – Dagblad van het Noorden ****

‘A pleasant read and intriguing book, that definitely deserves to be read.’ –

CuttingEdge.nl

Mariëtte Haveman (1957) is an art historian and writer. She is the editor of the

art journal Kunstschrift which won the prestigious Prince Bernhard Culture

Fund prize in 2000. Her literary debut, Faye Finsbury’s Photo was highly praised

and in 2010 she published her second novel called The Women Catcher which

was nominated for the Libris Literature Prize.

Bregje Hofstede – The Sky Over Paris


Featured in the Ten Books from Holland brochure

from the Dutch Foundation for Literature. Rights

sold to Germany (C.H. Beck) and Denmark

(Tiderne Skifter). Nominated for the Libris

Literature Prize and the Golden Book Owl. English

sample translation available.

The comfortable routine of Olivier, a professor in

the history of art at the Sorbonne, is disrupted

when his boss asks him to offer guidance to a

foreign female student. The awkward Dutch

student rakes up something from Olivier’s past

that he would rather have forgotten, but which, at

the same time, is his most precious memory.

Against his better judgment, he gets closer to his pupil and gives her some

advice he has never managed to follow. But Fie has her own life. She struggles

with an impossible choice: to reach for the very best, and to be devoured by it

— or not to start at all so as not to fail. She firmly resists her own fear of life,

and invites Olivier to do the same. The Sky Over Paris is about the lies we tell

ourselves so that we don’t have to do what we desire most. This is one of the

most outstanding love stories in contemporary Dutch literature, and a

magnificent debut by a young author.

‘A new voice in literary fiction that is unusual and promises a great deal more

for the future. I have followed her development as a person and a writer since

she was nineteen and I am convinced that she has an exceptional talent and a

great gift as a stylist and a narrative writer.’ – Aidan Chambers

‘A dream debut!’ – Tubantia

Bregje Hofstede (1988) studied history of art and French in Utrecht, Paris and

Berlin. She received the Hollands Maandblad scholarship for her short stories

and essays. The Sky Over Paris was sold to Germany and Denmark and film

rights are under option. She is currently writing her second novel.

Dola de Jong – The Field


Full English translation available.

After the international success of Ida Simons,

Cossee Publishers presents another wonderful

rediscovery of the Dutch literature.

‘This moving novel of loss, betrayal and survival,

originally published in the USA in 1945 and edited

by Maxwell Perkins (editor of Ernest Hemingway

and F. Scott Fitzgerald) won the National Prize for

Literature in Holland in 1947. Aart and Lies, a

young married couple, flee Holland as war sweeps

through Europe. They land near Tangiers and

attempt to farm some inhospitable soil with the

help of a collection of refugee children they have gathered along the way. Each

meets the incredible challenge of the new life in a matter-of-fact fashion and

carefully picks a way through the tenuous days, struggling for food and shelter.

The Field survives the years well, never seems dated, and remains a powerful

indictment of the horror and corruption of war.’ – Publishers Weekly

‘Will not easily fade from the mind. Calm and dispassionate, without a touch of

ranting, it is a terrific indictment of modern war.’ – The New York Times

‘Of all the books to come out of World War II, none reveal with such terrifying

clarity the nature of demoralization. Written with a realism that suggests

Flaubert. A beautiful job of writing.’ – Associated Press

Dorothea Rosalie de Jong (Arnhem, 1911 – Laguna Woods/California 2003)

wrote children’s books, novels and short stories. She decided to flee the

Netherlands in 1940 with the tension of war increasing. Together with her

husband she reaches Tangiers and successfully makes the passage to America.

She writes The Field which is an instant success and she receives the Edgar

Allen Poe Award for her thriller The Whirligig of Time (1964).

Jan van Mersbergen – The Last Escape


Featured in the Ten Books from Holland brochure

from the Dutch Foundation for Literature. Rights

sold to Serbia (Clio) and Slovenia (Cankarjeva).

Awarded the F. Bordewijk Prize for best Dutch

fiction in 2014, nominated for the AKO Literature

Prize. English sample translation available.

‘You’re my father,’ the boy says on the telephone.

His name is Deedee, he is ten years old, and he is

talking to his father for the very first time. After

this first phone call from his son, Ivan is puzzled.

Was it a prank call? But after the boy’s second

call, they meet, and when Ivan sees the kid, he

knows it’s true. Deedee looks just like Ivan’s young brother who remained in

Yugoslavia and got killed in the war. Ivan left Yugoslavia to escape the war, and

nowadays makes a living by performing a Houdini act in Amsterdam

nightclubs?: he is tied to a chair in a burning jacket, and has to free himself

before the fire reaches his collar.

‘This is a novel that outshines practically all Dutch literature that has recently

been published. – Tubantia

‘There are no more excuses. Read Jan!’ – Athenaeum Bookstore

‘A novel written with a self-evident intimacy in which two men find out what it

means to be the father of a ten-year old. With his magnificent seventh novel

Jan van Mersbergen shows that he is a master of the small gesture and the

unspoken thoughts.’ – F. Bordewijk Jury

Jan van Mersbergen’s (1971) To the Other Side of the Night was awarded the

BNG New Literature Prize and nominated for the Libris Literature Prize, the

AKO Literature Prize and the Golden Book Owl. A movie based on the book will

be released in 2016 and the film rights for Tomorrow Pamplona have been sold

to First Born Films. Van Mersbergen’s books have been published in Germany,

UK, France, Turkey and Spain.

Lodewijk van Oord – The Last Rhino


Rights sold to Germany (Knaus). Awarded best

Amsterdam novel of 2014 by NRC Handelsblad.


Due to tragic circumstances, the last surviving

rhinos live in the Amsterdam zoo. Ambitious

manager Edo Morell is determined to save the

struggling zoo from its downfall—and he isn’t

afraid to make sacrifices. The cooperation with

the South-African rhino-specialist Sariah Malan,

who is very much involved with the endangered

species, is starting to pay off. But even the zoo is

not able to protect the rhinos from the hunters

who kill them for their horns. Soon, Albrecht is the last survivor of his species.

Edo considers this to be the perfect opportunity to attract more attention to

his zoo. In secret, he develops a series of spectacular events, the first in the

Amsterdam Arena football stadium. He ignores Sariah’s animal activism, and

plans performances on stages around the world. While they are slowly falling in

love, their opinions on Albrecht’s fate grow more and more apart. In The Last

Rhino, humor and harsh reality are beautifully joined. Lodewijk van Oord

reveals vital aspects of the contemporary political climate in fascinating scenes

in his debut novel. The Last Rhino is a novel that earns its place in current

discussions, and is an unbelievable debut by a great literary talent.

‘A beautifully, humorous and cinematic social criticism of our relationship with

animals. The zoo as a metaphor for real life. After George Orwell’s Animal Farm

we now have Lodewijk van Oord’s The Last Rhino.’ – De Wereld Draait Door

Lodewijk van Oord (Madrid, 1977) moved from Spain to Wales to teach in a

twelfth-century castle on the cliffs. He has written stories, essays, and articles

for journals and literary magazines. Van Oord moved from Wales to Swaziland

in 2010 where he was the principal at the Waterford Kamhlaba, the first

multiracial school in South Africa. Since 2014 he has been living and working in

the Italian village of Duino, near Trieste.

Andreas Oosthoek – The Tale of Solle

208 pages, 70.000 words, published in 2015.


In 1974 Andreas Oosthoek wrote an impressive

story about a blossoming love in the polders of

Zeeland. For forty years the manuscript was lost.

With this beautiful portrait of Zeeland and its

residents, a ‘literary treasure has been kissed

awake’ (Provinciale Zeeuwse Courant).

The young Solle grows up in the polders of

Zeeland in the fifties, where he will later take over

the family business. As a farmer’s son, he is the

odd one out, but then he meets the eccentric

Jacques – a Buutendieker, just like him. The boys

become inseparable. While Solle feels strongly connected to his background

and family, the young baron Jacques Christophe d’Ulm wants to go around the

world. He wants to live a nomadic life and seek freedom, strolling along the

boulevards of Paris. Except for his relationship with Solle he has never been

able to connect to anyone. Despite their affinity, Jacques leaves for France.

They keep in contact, even at a distance. Although their lives are moving in

different directions, they keep dreaming of a future together. But then Jacques

is struck by a mysterious illness, and all hope on a long life disappears.

Suddenly their time together is limited and soon Solle is left behind with

nothing but memories.

‘Dutch literature suddenly seems to be in better shape thanks to this novel. The

language is so beautiful and the book is sizzling. Magnificent.’ – Tubantia

Andreas Oosthoek (Nieuwdorp, 1942) is poet, essayist and journalist. As a

soldier, Oosthoek was part of the identification team in 1964, which concerned

itself with the storage and identification of war victims. This is the subject of

Oosthoek’s novella Vuurland, an impressive and sometimes gruesome

testimony, which will also be published in 2015. He will soon complete his

years of work on the biography of the famous Dutch poet Martinus Nijhoff.

Isabelle Rossaert – This is What I Cherish

160 pages, 40,000 words, to be published in 2015

It is early in the morning when the men of

Cucuron gather for the hunt at the foot of the

dark French Luberon mountains. They hunt wild

boars. Max isn’t present like he promised but the

men don’t give it much thought and start the

hunt. The first shots, high on the ridge of the

mountain, evoke squealing – but not the

squealing of a boar.

Valérie is the last who saw Max alive. She moves

to Paris to forget him. Did she fully understand his

last whispered words to her that night? That he

couldn’t see a future without her? Valérie starts

her study at the Sorbonne but she can’t seem to forget Max and the boar. In

Paris she meets Jean-Michel who learns about Valéries small town past and

travels to Cucuron to unravel the rumors, the gossip and stories to reconstruct

what really had happened on the mountain that fateful morning.

Isabelle Rossaert (Genk, 1966) studied Psychology and is (chief-) editor and

reporter. She is a journalist for De Standaard and teaches creative writing.

Isabelle has published non-fiction (The Lost Stork) and short stories with co-

author Paul Verhaeghen. This is What I Cherish is her fiction debut.

Aleksandr Skorobogatov – Portrait of an Unknown Girl


Full Russian manuscript available.

Portrait of an Unknown Girl is a sensual,

captivating and tragic story about a secret

teenage love, unfolding against the gloomy

background of oppressed Belarus in the final

decades of Soviet rule. Told from the perspective

of Sasha, who is thirteen at the beginning of the

novel and eighteen at its tragic end, Aleksandr

Skorobogatov’s beautiful and gripping coming-of-

age novel takes the reader on an emotional

rollercoaster ride.

‘Skorobogatov is one of the most interesting

authors of post-communist Russia.’ – De Standaard

‘A great Russian novel where the hero is a husband tortured by the demons of

jealousy. With this beautiful tragic novel, Skorobogatov has carved a place for

himself in the great Russian tradition.’ – Le Figaro

‘It has been many years since such an original work found its way from Russia

to this country. An impressive debut that whets the reader’s appetite for more

to come.’ – NRC Handelsblad

Aleksandr Skorobogatov is considered one of the most original Russian writers

of the post-communist era. He studied drama and film, divinities and is a

graduate of the Gorky Literary Institute. He has written short stories, essays,

and eight novels, which have been published to great acclaim in Russian, Dutch,

French, Italian, and Greek and have received several literary awards. He lives

with his wife and daughters in Belgium.

US rights represented by Markus Hoffmann, Regal Hoffmann & Associates, LLC. (NY),

[email protected].

RECENT ACQUISITIONS & PUBLICATIONS / CONTACT

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Adrien Bosc – Constellation (Stock, Paris)

Hans Fallada – Der Alpdruck (Aufbau, Berlin)

Sherko Fatah – Der letzte Ort (Luchterhand, München)

Milena Michiko Flasar – Ich nannte ihn Krawatte (Wagenbach, Berlin)

David Foenkinos – Charlotte (Gallimard, Paris)

Anna Gmeyner – Manja (Aufbau, Berlin)

David Grossman – A Horse Walks Into a Bar (Deborah Harris, Jerusalem)

Monika Held – Der Schrecken verliert sich vor Ort (Eichborn/Lubbe, Cologne)

Wolfgang Herrndorf – Arbeit und Struktur (Rowohlt, Reinbek)

Erling Jepsen – South Jutland Farm (Gyldendal, Copenhagen)

Ken Kesey – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Viking Penguin, New York City)

Dea Loher – Bugatti taucht auf (Wallstein, Göttingen)

Oleg Pavlov – Captain of the Steppe (Elkost, Barcelona)

Steven Rosenfeld – Dancing for Survival (Cossee, Amsterdam)

Bernhard Schlink – Die Frau auf der Treppe (Diogenes, Zürich)

Elisabeth de Waal – The Exiles Return (Andrew Nurnberg, London)

Volker Weidermann – Ostende, 1936 (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne)

Jiri Weil – Moscow Border (Dilla Agency, Prague)

To support Dutch literature beyond our borders, translation grants can be obtained through The

Dutch Foundation For Literature. Visit www.letterenfonds.nl/en/grants for more information.

Cossee Publishers

Kerkstraat 361

1017 HW Amsterdam

www.cossee.com

www.cossee.com/foreignrights

Eva Cossee, publisher

[email protected]

Christoph Buchwald, publisher

[email protected]

Laurens Molegraaf, foreign rights

[email protected]

Documents

Cossee london list 2015