The Song and the Truth
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Lulu is five. She lives on Java with her father, a dedicated colonial doctor; her mother, a beautiful, narcissistic would-be artist; her aunt Margot; and, unexpectedly, her father’s brother, Uncle Felix. By day she plays outside. By night, when the grown-ups are asleep, she inhabits a mysterious world in which reality and fantasy merge, and human beings, animals, and plants are transformed by moonlight into gods and demons. On her nocturnal wanderings, Lulu witnesses puzzling scenes among the adults, and when she innocently describes them, commotion ensues. Suddenly, commanded by her grandfather, the family abandons the idyllic tropical base and returns to Holland. But the year is 1939, and Lulu’s family is Jewish. Forced into hiding by the German invasion, Lulu leaves childhood and enters a hostile world, sustained only by her father’s love (her mother decamped for London) and her own fierce, increasingly-tested courage.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Paul
Vincent
Paul Vincent is a Dutch translator, currently living in London. He studied German, French and Dutch at Cambridge University and taught Dutch for many years at London University before becoming a full- time translator. He has translated over thirty books of fiction and non-fiction, winning the 2011 Vondel Prize for his version of My Little War by Louis Paul Boon. In poetry he has translated among others Achterberg, Reve, Hooft, Elsschot, Bredero, Vondel, Jellema, Claus, Nolens (An English Anthology, Carcanet, 2018), Marsman (Reid Poetry Prize), Gorter, Gezelle, One Hundred Dutch-Language Poems (with John Irons; won Oxford -Weidenfeld Prize, 2016).
Paul Vincent is a Dutch translator, currently living in London. He studied German, French and Dutch at Cambridge University and taught Dutch for many years at London University before becoming a full- time translator. He has translated over thirty books of fiction and non-fiction, winning the 2011 Vondel Prize for his version of My Little War by Louis Paul Boon. In poetry he has translated among others Achterberg, Reve, Hooft, Elsschot, Bredero, Vondel, Jellema, Claus, Nolens (An English Anthology, Carcanet, 2018), Marsman (Reid Poetry Prize), Gorter, Gezelle, One Hundred Dutch-Language Poems (with John Irons; won Oxford -Weidenfeld Prize, 2016).