The Twin (Rainmaker Translations)

"A novel of restrained tenderness and laconic humor."—J. M. Coetzee

"The charm of Bakker's book is how finely every element is balanced, how perfectly the story is paced. … The great pleasure of this novel is how it has just enough plot to allow us to relish its beautifully turned observations of birds and beasts, weather and water."—Tim Parks, The New York Review of Books

"Gerbrand Bakker's writing is so fabulously clear, so clear that each sentence leaves a rippling wake."—Los Angeles Times

"Oustanding. … Full of life and truth. … One of those rare works of fiction that everyone should read."—The Irish Times

"I just finished The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker, which is basically all about themes that I associate with crushing boredom—farmers and old, sick parents and rural areas—but I couldn't put it down. It's subtle, quiet, hilarious, cruel, beautiful, and somehow exhilarating in all of its understatement. It has a protagonist with a unique voice. It never hits a false note. It never hits a predictable note. Reading a book like that is joyous, especially when it keeps rereading itself in your head, your heart, and your life for a few days or weeks afterwards."—Elizabeth Bachner, Bookslut

Winner of the 2010 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the largest and most international prize of its kind that involves libraries from all corners of the globe, The Twin was also a 2009 NPR pick for Best Foreign Fiction of the Year and a Powell's Indiespensable Pick.

Ostensibly a novel about the countryside, The Twin is ultimately about the possibility or impossibility of taking life into ones own hands. It chronicles a way of life that has resisted modernity, a world culturally apart yet laden with romantic longing.

Winner of the 2010 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

An NPR pick for Best Foreign Fiction of the Year, a School Library Journal Best Adult Book for High School Students and a Powells.com Indispensable Pick.

Author of TEN WHITE GEESE (Penguin, 2013)

"A novel of restrained tenderness and laconic humor."—J. M. Coetzee

"Gerbrand Bakker's writing is so fabulously clear, so clear that each sentence leaves a rippling wake."—Los Angeles Times

When his twin brother is killed in a car accident, Helmer is obliged to give up university to take over his brother's role on the small family farm, resigning himself to spending the rest of his days "with his head under a cow."

The novel begins thirty years later with Helmer moving his invalid father upstairs and out of the way so he can redecorate the downstairs, finally making it his own. Then Riet, the woman who had once been engaged to Helmer's twin, appears and asks if her troubled eighteen-year-old son could come live on the farm for a while.

The Twin poses complex questions about solitude and the possibility of taking life into one's own hands. Set in the beautiful landscape of the Dutch countryside, it chronicles a way of life that has resisted modernity, a world culturally apart yet laden with familiar longing.

Gerbrand Bakker lives in the Netherlands.

Ten White Geese is the eagerly anticipated, internationally bestselling new novel by the winner of the world's richest literary prize for a single work of fiction.