The Longest Night

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title The Longest Night
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Otto de Kat
Translated by Laura Watkinson
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:240
Dimensions(mm): Height 207,Width 191
Category/GenreModern and contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
ISBN/Barcode 9780857056092
Audience
General
Tertiary Education (US: College)
Professional & Vocational

Publishing Details

Publisher Quercus Publishing
Imprint MacLehose Press
Publication Date 19 April 2018
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

A masterpiece of literary craft and concision; sparse, beautiful and hugely affecting - Daily Mail Since the liberation of the Netherlands, Emma Verweij has been living in Rotterdam, in a street which became a stronghold of friendships for its inhabitants during the Second World War. She marries Bruno, they have two sons, and she determines to block out the years she spent in Nazi Berlin during the war, with her first husband Carl. But now, ninety-six years old and on the eve of her death, long- forgotten memories crowd again into her consciousness, flashbacks of happier years, and the tragedy of the war, of Carl, of her father, and of the friends she has lost. In THE LONGEST NIGHT, his impressive, reflective new novel after News from Berlin, Otto de Kat deftly distills momentous events of 20th-century history into the lives of his characters. In Emma, the past and the present coincide in limpid fragments of rare, melancholy beauty. Translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson

Author Biography

Otto de Kat is the pen name of the founder of Dutch non-fiction publishing house Balans, Jan Guert Gaarlandt, also a poet, novelist and critic. His prize-winning novels have been widely published in Europe, and Man on the Move was the winner of the Netherlands' Halewijn Literature Prize.

Reviews

A masterpiece of literary craft and concision; sparse, beautiful and hugely affecting. - Daily Mail An exceedingly beautiful novel that you read breathless till the end. - E.O. Vision. De Kat mixes great moral issues with historical events. This is his literary art. The Longest Night is melancholic and brilliantly written. - Radio Berlin. Otto de Kat has created a small masterpiece. - Nurnberger Zeitung. The De Kat Express takes you on a journey without borders. - NRC Handelsblad. These are novels of subtle emotional distance . . . as physical as a blow to the heart - Irish Times One of the Netherlands' most compelling literary voices - Irish Examiner