My Father’s War: A Novel
ABOUT
THE BOOK
My Father’s War is the gripping story of a son’s struggle to understand his family’s wartime experience in a Japanese concentration camp, and to come to terms with its effects on him. Born in Holland after the Second World War, the boy grows up as an outsider in the midst of his part-Indonesian family. Living in isolation among the dunes of coastal Holland, he looks on as his father and sisters are mocked for their “yellow skin,” endures the bizarre and brutal military training his father puts him through, and wonders about the hardships his family suffered but never mentioned.
Years later, the middle-aged son begins a quest into his family’s past in Indonesia, and the origins of his father’s strange mix of charm and cruelty. Despite his sisters’ denial and his mother’s evasiveness, details surface about the incredible endurance of his father, one of the few survivors of torture in the camp. Returning always to the dunes of his childhood, the man comes to a final acceptance of his father and a new understanding of their relationship.
Reminiscent of Harry Mulisch’s The Assault for its moving exploration of the indirect effects of World War II, My Father’s War also brings to mind Philip Roth’s Patrimony in its unblinking search for understanding between a hard father and a sensitive son.
Original Title in Dutch Indische Duinen Meulenhoff (1994)
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Claire
Nicolas White
Claire Nicolas White (June 18, 1925 – May 26, 2020) was a Dutch-born American poet, novelist, translator of Dutch and French literature, and educator renowned for her multifaceted contributions to the arts, including poetry collections, memoirs, and editorial work. Born in Groet, Netherlands, to stained-glass artist Joep Nicolas and sculptor Suzanne Nys, she was the niece of writer Aldous Huxley through her mother’s sister Maria. After graduating from Smith College, White married sculptor Robert White (grandson of architect Stanford White), with whom she had four children, and settled on Long Island, where she became an iconic figure in the local arts community as a teacher of ballet, French, and writing. White’s literary career spanned decades, producing notable works such as the novel The Death of the Orange Trees (1963), memoirs like Fragments of Stained Glass (1981) and The Elephant and the Rose (2003)
Claire Nicolas White (June 18, 1925 – May 26, 2020) was a Dutch-born American poet, novelist, translator of Dutch and French literature, and educator renowned for her multifaceted contributions to the arts, including poetry collections, memoirs, and editorial work. Born in Groet, Netherlands, to stained-glass artist Joep Nicolas and sculptor Suzanne Nys, she was the niece of writer Aldous Huxley through her mother’s sister Maria. After graduating from Smith College, White married sculptor Robert White (grandson of architect Stanford White), with whom she had four children, and settled on Long Island, where she became an iconic figure in the local arts community as a teacher of ballet, French, and writing. White’s literary career spanned decades, producing notable works such as the novel The Death of the Orange Trees (1963), memoirs like Fragments of Stained Glass (1981) and The Elephant and the Rose (2003)