ABOUT
THE BOOK

One summer’s afternoon in 1981, a factory owner, Christiaan Dudok, is found dead in his study having taken his own life. He has left no suicide note, but on his desk is a newspaper from 2 April 1942, reporting on the bombing of the north German town of Lübeck. The list of the dead includes the highlighted name of Julia Bender. As a young man finishing his studies in Lübeck in 1938, Christiaan is irresistibly drawn to Julia, a courageous German who has emphatically rejected the Nazi regime. But that same year he is forced to leave both Germany and the woman he loves, even though he suspects that he is making the greatest mistake of his life. Julia is the story of a life lived wrongly, of a love so great that it endures for decades, and yet still fails. Fear of life and loss of courage, and terrifying inhuman fanaticism are the compelling themes explored in Otto de Kat’s elegantly accomplished, elegiac novel.