Gerbrand Bakker

International Dublin Literary Award-winning Gerbrand Bakker gives voice to the visceral power of family ties in a novel brimming with Knausgaardian detail When his wife tells him she is pregnant, Cornelis packs his bags and boards a plane--a day later he is dead. Now grown, Simon roams the barbershop his father left him, honing razors and polishing mirrors in a shop marked FERM . He sees his customers one by one, massaging scalps and shaving throats in an intimate, physical dance. There's only one customer whose presence in Simon's impeccable shop breaks this silent routine: the writer. Trimming the fine tips of the writer's eyebrows, Simon loses himself in a parallel life--one where he lives and grows old with the writer, shaping a crewcut around an "old, weathered face." The writer, looking for a life to fold into his next book, becomes entranced by the mystery surrounding Simon's father--in the patterns of their conversation, Cornelis's absence is renewed. As Simon begins to scour for the traces his father left behind, a carefully observed portrait of love and loneliness emerges. With subdued prose and bracing, sometimes pungent closeness, Gerbrand Bakker writes life itself into his characters.

Multi–award winning Dutch author Gerbrand Bakker’s phenomenal new novel about grief and the unavoidable power of family ties. Simon never knew his father, Cornelis. When his wife told him she was pregnant, Cornelis packed his bags, and a day later he was dead. Or everyone assumed he was dead; after all, he was on the passenger list of the KLM plane that crashed in Tenerife in 1977. Simon is a hairdresser, just like his father and grandfather before him, but he is not passionate about cutting and shaving. ‘Closed’ appears on his shop’s front door more often than ‘open’, because every customer is a person, and people suck the energy from him. But there is one client he regularly interacts with: the writer. The writer is looking for a subject for his next book, and becomes captivated by the story of Simon’s father. As Simon probes the mystery of what happened to his father, a deeply humane and beautifully observed portrait of loneliness emerges in another captivating novel from one of Europe’s greatest storytellers.

November. En kvinne forsvinner. Hjemme i Amsterdam blir mannen hennes avhørt av en forståelsesfull politibetjent og tar kontakt med svigerforeldrene sine. Kvinnen har leid et gammelt hus på bonde.landet i Wales. Hun begynner med blanke ark, langt borte fra vanskeligheter og vonde beskjeder. Uvilkårlig bygger hun noe opp. November blir desember. En mutt sauebonde slakter et lam, en lege sitter og røyker seg i hjel på det folketomme legekontoret, kvinnen får ny sveis hos den lokale frisørdamen. Av de ti hvite gjessene på gåsejordet ved huset er det fire igjen. Og hva skal hun gjøre med den vennlige, men ubestemmelige gutten som kommer hoppende over hagemuren en tåkete ettermiddag. Julaften går ektemannen og politibetjenten om bord i fergen til Hull. De kommer stadig nærmere, det begynner å haste.

By the award-winning author of The TwinOn a hot summer’s day in June 1969 everyone in the village gathered to welcome Queen Juliana. It would have been an unforgettable day of celebration if only the baker hadn’t been running late with his deliveries and knocked down little Hanne with his brand-new VW van.Years later, Jan arrives on a hot day in June in order to tidy his sister’s grave, and is overcome again with grief and silent fury. Isn’t it finally time to get to the bottom of things? June traces in spellbinding, tender detail how the ripples from one tragic incident spread through a community, a family and down the generations.‘Illuminating’ Independent‘Exceptional’ Irish Times

WINNER OF THE INDEPENDENT FOREIGN FICTION PRIZE AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE IMPAC DUBLIN PRIZE'A wonderful novel. Back on the farm, a young man out walking with his dog injures himself and stays the night, then ends up staying longer.

When his twin brother dies in a car accident, Helmer is obliged to return to the small family farm. Ostensibly a novel about the countryside, as seen through the eyes of a farmer, The Twin is, in the end, about the possibility or impossibility of taking life into one's own hands.