Kort voor sy dood in die 1980’s gee Stefan Hertmans se oupa aan sy kleinseun ’n paar volgeskrewe ou dagboekies. Jare lank durf Hertmans dit nie oopmaak en lees nie – tot op ’n dag dat hy dit wel doen en meer as een geheim daarin ontdek. Hy lees van sy oupa se armoedige kinderjare in Gent voor 1900, van sy gruwelike ervarings as frontsoldaat in die Eerste Wereldoorlog en ’n vroeg gestorwe groot liefde. Na die oorlog sit sy oupa sy lewe voort deur sy verdriet te probeer wegskilder. Stefan Hertmans se jare lange fassinasie met sy oupa se lewe bring hom uiteindelik tot die skryf van hierdie roman.

WINNER OF THE VONDEL PRIZE 2017 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2017 MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 in The Times, Sunday Times and The Economist, and one of the 10 Best Books of 2016 in the New York Times Shortly before his death at the age of 90, Stefan Hertmans' grandfather Urbain gave his grandson a set of notebooks. As Stefan began to read, he found himself drawn into a conversation across the centuries, as Urbain - so quiet and reserved in life - revealed his eloquence and his private passions on the page. Gradually, as he learned of his grandfather's heroics in the First World War, the loss of his great love, and his later years spent seeking solace in art and painting, a portrait emerged of the grandfather he had never fully known. War and Turpentine is an exquisite, loving reconstruction of a man's interior life, at once deeply personal and yet so evocative of many of his generation, affected by the long shadow of war. In beautiful, glimmering prose, Hertmans shows us how our experiences shape us all, and how, even in a life of sorrow and heartache, dignity can be found.

WINNER OF THE VONDEL PRIZE 2017 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2017 MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 in The Times, Sunday Times and The Economist, and one of the 10 Best Books of 2016 in the New York Times Shortly before his death, Stefan Hertmans' grandfather Urbain Martien gave his grandson a set of notebooks containing the detailed memories of his life. He grew up in poverty around 1900, the son of a struggling church painter who died young, and went to work in an iron foundry at only 13. Afternoons spent with his father at work on a church fresco were Urbain's heaven; the iron foundry an inferno. During the First World War, Urbain was on the front line confronting the invading Germans, and ever after he is haunted by events he can never forget. The war ends and he marries his great love, Maria Emelia, but she dies tragically in the 1919 flu epidemic. Urbain mourns her bitterly for the rest of his life but, like the obedient soldier he is, he marries her sister at her parents' bidding. The rest is not quite silence, but a marriage with a sad secret at its heart, and the consolations found in art and painting. War and Turpentine is the imaginative reconstruction of a damaged life across the tumultuous decades of the twentieth century; a deeply moving portrayal of family, grief, love and war.

In the first year of the new millennium, a book came into my hands from which I learned that for twenty years I had lived in the house of a former SS man. The dazzling new novel by Stefan Hertmans, author of the modern classic War and Turpentine. 'A powerful and humane reminder that the horrors of the past century are inexhaustibly fascinating and reverberate today.' Observer In 1979, Stefan Hertmans fell in love with a beautiful dilapidated old house in Ghent in Belgium, which he lovingly rescued from decay, as it became his peaceful sanctuary. Now, all these years later, he learns that a bust of Hitler once sat on the mantelpiece, and a war criminal relaxed in its rooms with his family. This shocking discovery sends Hertmans off to the archives and to interview next of kin, to uncover the secrets of the house and reimagine this man's life and expose the atrocities he's responsible for. We see Willem Verhulst as a weak, narcissistic man who climbed high in the ranks of the SS; a fascinating and chilling case study for the cruel and perverse mentality of the Nazis. A story of war, family, and individual fate, The Ascent portrays the deep tragedy of Flemish collaboration during World War Two. Hertmans masterfully brings history and the house to life, as he appears in the novel as a trusted guide, and imagines individual lives to tell the greater European story. Translated from the Dutch by David McKay Praise for War and Turpentine 'All the marking of a future classic.' Neel Mukherjee, Guardian 'Staggering richness of language. Mesmerising from page one'. Simon Schama 'Masterpiece, an accolade often casually bestowed, really does describe this magnificent book.' Sunday Times, Book of the Year 'A masterly book.' New York Times, 10 Best Books of the Year

A brilliant reconstruction of an incredible journey across medieval Europe to Egypt, and an untold story of forbidden love.

In the small village in Provence where Stefan Hertmans has made his home, people have long spoken of an ancient pogrom and hidden treasure. Then, at the end of the nineteenth century, an extraordinary collection of Jewish documents was found in a synagogue in Cairo.

Hertmans has based The Convert on these historical sources, tracing the life of a young Christian noblewoman who abandoned everything for the love of a rabbi’s son. In this startlingly contemporary novel, Hertmans follows in her footsteps as the lovers flee through France together, pursued by crusading knights, and recounts her dazzling journey full of love and hardship, courage and hate, as she journeys on towards Jerusalem alone.

The Convert brings the chaos of the Middle Ages to life with boundless imagination and stylistic ingenuity, portraying the tragic love story of a woman in exile and a world in flux.

A brilliant reconstruction of an incredible journey across medieval Europe to Egypt, and an untold story of forbidden love.

In the small village in Provence where Stefan Hertmans has made his home, people have long spoken of an ancient pogrom and hidden treasure. Then, at the end of the nineteenth century, an extraordinary collection of Jewish documents was found in a synagogue in Cairo.

Hertmans has based The Convert on these historical sources, tracing the life of a young Christian noblewoman who abandoned everything for the love of a rabbi's son. In this startlingly contemporary novel, Hertmans follows in her footsteps as the lovers flee through France together, pursued by crusading knights, and recounts her dazzling journey full of love and hardship, courage and hate, as she travels on towards Jerusalem alone.