my_heavenly_favourite_cover
2025 Longlist

My Heavenly Favourite

Translated from the Dutch
artwork-image

ABOUT
THE BOOK

In the tempestuous summer of 2005, a fourteen-year-old farmer’s daughter makes friends with the local veterinarian who looks after her father’s cows. He has reached ‘the biblical age of seven times seven’ and is trying to escape trauma, while she is trying to escape into a world of fantasy. Their obsessive reliance on each other’s stories builds into a terrifying trap, with a confession at the heart of it that threatens to rip their small community apart. Indelible, audacious and impossible-to-put-down, My Heavenly Favourite is powered by the paradoxical beauty of its prose.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Lucas
Rijneveld

Lucas Rijneveld grew up in a Reformed farming family in North Brabant before moving to Utrecht. One of the greatest new voices in Dutch literature, his first poetry collection, Calf’s Caul, was awarded the C. Buddingh’ Prize for best poetry debut in 2015, with the newspaper de Volkskrant naming them literary talent of the year. In 2018, Atlas Contact published his first novel, The Discomfort of Evening,which won the prestigious ANV Debut Prize and was a national bestseller. The UK edition won the Booker International Prize 2020. Alongside his writing career, Rijneveld works on a dairy farm.

Lucas Rijneveld grew up in a Reformed farming family in North Brabant before moving to Utrecht. One of the greatest new voices in Dutch literature, his first poetry collection, Calf’s Caul, was awarded the C. Buddingh’ Prize for best poetry debut in 2015, with the newspaper de Volkskrant naming them literary talent of the year. In 2018, Atlas Contact published his first novel, The Discomfort of Evening,which won the prestigious ANV Debut Prize and was a national bestseller. The UK edition won the Booker International Prize 2020. Alongside his writing career, Rijneveld works on a dairy farm.

ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Michele
Hutchison

Michele Hutchison studied at UEA, Cambridge, and Lyon universities and worked in publishing for a number of years. In 2004, she moved to Amsterdam. Among the many works she has translated are La Superba by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Slaves to Fortune by Tom Lanoye, both Craving and Roxy by Esther Gerritsen, and Stadium IV by Sander Kollaard, for which she received the Vondel Translation Prize 2020. In the same year, her translation of Lucas Rijneveld’s novel The Discomfort of Evening was awarded the International Booker Prize. She also co-authored the successful parenting book, The Happiest Kids in the World.

Michele Hutchison studied at UEA, Cambridge, and Lyon universities and worked in publishing for a number of years. In 2004, she moved to Amsterdam. Among the many works she has translated are La Superba by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Slaves to Fortune by Tom Lanoye, both Craving and Roxy by Esther Gerritsen, and Stadium IV by Sander Kollaard, for which she received the Vondel Translation Prize 2020. In the same year, her translation of Lucas Rijneveld’s novel The Discomfort of Evening was awarded the International Booker Prize. She also co-authored the successful parenting book, The Happiest Kids in the World.

NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

My Heavenly Favorite is a staggering book about a forbidden love. The harrowing confessions of a veterinarian obsessed with his love for his chosen one: a girl far too young, who seeks to escape the emptiness of her rural world, her dysfunctional family life, and her imposed identity. Her search for freedom gives the pedophilic My heavenly favorite is a staggering book about a forbidden love. The harrowing confessions of a veterinarian obsessed with his love for his chosen one: a girl far too young, who seeks to escape the emptiness of her rural world, her dysfunctional family life, and her imposed identity. Her search for freedom gives the pedophilic veterinarian the opportunity to manipulate her. Rijneveld’s masterful style draws the reader deeper into this story. The narrative perspective is that of the unreliable narrator, the veterinarian, and Rijneveld compels the reader to engage with his shocking defense of the indefensible. Through the detour of his troubled gaze, you gradually come to know the girl better. A worthy successor to Rijneveld’s debut novel The Discomfort of Evening. Like the debut, My Heavenly Favorite was translated by Michele Hutchison, who once again demonstrates her great creative translation skills, as Rijneveld’s Dutch is a challenge for any translator.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Date published
01/02/2024
Country
The Netherlands
Original Language
Dutch
Publisher
Graywolf Press
Translator
Michele Hutchison
Translation
Translated from the Dutch
Borrow this book from Libraries Ireland

RELATED FEATURES

News January 15 2025

2025 Longlist Revealed

Novels by seven Irish authors are among the 71 books nominated by 83 libraries around the world!
News November 19 2024

2025 Dublin Literary Award Judges Announced

Meet our judging panel for 2025 Dublin Literary Award
Video November 1 2024

2024 Dublin Literary Award Ceremony

2024 Dublin Literary Award Ceremony announcement live-streamed from the International Literature Festival Dublin.
Audio June 11 2024

All About Books Podcast Features the 2024 Dublin Literary Award

Dublin City FM podcaster Katy Conneely spotlights the award.

STAY CONNECTED

Stay in touch and sign up to our newsletter to receive all the latest news and updates on the Dublin Literary Award.