Synopses & Reviews
In the Dutch countryside the war seems far away. For most people, at least. But not for Ed, a Jew in Nazi-occupied Holland trying to find some safe sanctuary. Compelled to go into hiding in the rural province of Zeeland, he is taken in by a seemingly benevolent family of farmers. But, as Ed comes to realize, the Van 't Westeindes are not what they seem. Camiel, the son of the house, is still in mourning for his best friend, a German soldier who committed suicide the year before. And Camiel's fiery, unstable sister Mariete begins to nurse a growing unrequited passion for their young guest, just as Ed realizes his own attraction to Camiel. As time goes by, Ed is drawn into the domestic intrigues around him, and the farmhouse that had begun as his refuge slowly becomes his prison.
Review
"Hans Warren places his narrative squarely within the tradition of Dutch hiding narratives, [however,] . . . where traditional hiding narratives often emphasize the danger of the neighbors' prying eyes, as well as those of business associates and passersby, in this novel, the danger seems to reside as much within the household as beyond it. Warren's brief novel is a compelling contribution to a well-known body of literature."—Jolanda Vanderwal Taylor, from the introduction
Synopsis
This book confronts the philosophical problems of otherness and identity through readings of the parables and fables of a colonized people, the Luba of Zaire. V.Y. Mudimbe poses two overarching questions: how can one think about and comment upon alterity without essentializing its features? Is it possible to speak and write about an African tradition or its contemporary practice without taking into account the authority of the colonial library that has invented African identities? Mudimbe brings unusual insight to such a discussion: Here I am on the margin of margins: Black, African, Catholic, yet agnostic; intellectually Marxist, disposed toward psychoanalysis, yet a specialist in Indo-European philology and philosophy. He uses his own education by Catholic missionaries in Zaire as a framework for exploring interactions between African and Western systems of thought.
About the Author
Hans Warren was a prominent Dutch writer best known for his published diaries, which he kept from 1939 until he died in 2001. In addition to these revered memoirs of modern life, he was a poet, translator of Greek literature, and a novelist.
S. J. Leinbach is a scholar and translator living in the Hague, Netherlands. His previous translations include Oek de Jongs novel Hoekwerdas Child.