From the home of literature, the DUBLIN Literary Award is proudly sponsored by Dublin City Council & administered by Dublin City Libraries
DUBLIN Literary Award
DUBLIN Literary Award
           
Facebook Twitter Pinterest linkedin Telegram
DUBLIN Literary Award
  • Home
  • The Books
  • The Judges
  • The Libraries
  • FAQs
  • The Archive
  • News
Menu
DUBLIN Literary Award
Sold out
HomeBooks20182018 Translated War and Turpentine
Previous product
Like the Starlings
Back to products
Next product
The Repenters

War and Turpentine

Author: Stefan Hertmans

Translated from the Dutch by David McKay

2018 Longlist

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.

About the author

Stefan Hertmans is the prizewinning author of many literary works, including poetry, novels, essays, plays, short stories and a handbook on the history of art. He has taught at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, at the Sorbonne, the Universities of Vienna, Berlin and Mexico City, at The Library of Congress in Washington, and University College London.

(from publisher)

Librarians’ comments

In beautiful prose Hertmans wrote a story about his grandfather’s recollections of the First World War. It’s an exquisite, moving and loving reconstruction of the drama of his grandfather’s life and an evocation of a whole generation of men affected by this war. But it’s more than just a war story. It’s a moving and well-constructed novel that shows us all how we can find dignity in sorrow and pain.

The life of Urbain Martien – artist, soldier, survivor of World War 1 – lies contained in two notebooks he left behind when he died in 1981. His grandson, a writer, retells his grandfather’s story with great imaginative power and vivid detail. This novel – already considered a classic – won the AKO Literatuur Prijs in 2014.

War and Turpentine is the moving story of the author’s grandfather. From his impoverished youth at the end of the 19th century to the horrors of the First World War, the book tells a story of a man obsessed with war, his beloved first wife and painting. Told in beautiful prose, this is a strong portrait of a troubled man, especially the part of his experiences in the war is breathtaking. The photographs in the book make it even more tangible.

  • Additional information
  • Libraries Ireland - Find This Book
Additional information
Author

Stefan Hertmans

Country

BE

Nominating Library

Belgium, Openbare Bibliotheek Brugge

Publisher

Harvill Secker, UK

Translation

Translated from the Dutch by David McKay

Libraries Ireland - Find This Book

Libraries Ireland Encore System

Search for this book in the Dublin City Library Encore system and arrange a suitable location for loaning it.

Search Encore for War and Turpentine

This search result is offered as a helping hand to find books in the Library Ireland Encore System. Some results may not be accurate where book titles have common words with similar titles. 

Categories: 2018, 2018 Translated
Share
Facebook Twitter Pinterest linkedin Telegram
ABOUT DUBLIN CITY LIBRARY & ARCHIVE

Dublin City Libraries, a service of Dublin City Council, is Ireland’s largest library service, with responsibility for the delivery of high quality, effective public library, information and archive services to a resident population of over half a million people.

Designated as a UNESCO City of Literature in 2010, Dublin City Libraries aims to maximise opportunity for all – individuals and communities – through guided access to ideas, learning, literature, information and heritage resources supported by cultural programming.

Cookie Information

This website uses Cookies. Continued use of the site will be deemed as your acceptance of this necessity.

Connect with us
           
Quick Links
  • Home
  • The Books
  • The Judges
  • The Libraries
  • FAQs
  • The Archive
  • News
DUBLIN Literary Award. Dublin City Library & Archive. 138 - 144 Pearse Street, Dublin 2. Ireland. Email: literaryaward@dublincity.ie. Tel +353 1 6744802. Copyright © 2019 Dublin City Libraries.
Website by JET Design
close
Start typing to see products you are looking for.
  • Home
  • The Judges
  • The Books
  • The Libraries
  • FAQs
  • The Archive
  • News
Scroll To Top