Overview

The boy Kito grows up as the only child of his adoptive parents. Chubby and dark-skinned, he is ruthlessly bullied at school, but at home he says nothing about what he is going through, only that he has pains in his stomach. After a class outing to the beach, he does not return. His lifeless body is later discovered washed up on the sand. Determined to find the person responsible for Kitos death, his mother follows the trail to drama teacher Hannah, who was in charge of overseeing the field trip that day. By this time Hannah has begun a new life in the countryside of Bulgaria, and unsuspectingly welcomes Kitos mother. As the snow begins to fall, the two women become tangled in a claustrophobic relationship in which nothing is what it seems. As trust between them begins to grow, Hannah starts, hesitantly, to tell the story of Kito. In the meantime Kitos mother has only one thing on her mind, revenge..

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9781908446503

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Reviews

'Heartbreaking, free from voyeurism, and so wonderfully written that one can hardly put the book down' (Elle ,Germany)'This is a literary construct which is presented with such excitement and panache that it transforms fiction into something believable' (Arie Storm Het Parool). Versteeg carries her readers organically along towards dark human desires towards muddy ground where complexity and ambiguity reign, to where the monster is give a human voice. Feel good is entirely absent from Versteeg's sinister, desolate universe of high literature' (Jeroen Vullings, Vrij Nederland). 'Such an incredible write'(Annemaire Oster, de Volkskrant).

'This is a literary construct which is presented with such excitement and panache that it transforms fiction into something believable' (Arie Storm Het Parool). Versteeg carries her readers organically along towards dark human desires towards muddy ground where complexity and ambiguity reign, to where the monster is give a human voice. Feel good is entirely absent from Versteeg's sinister, desolate universe of high literature' (Jeroen Vullings, Vrij Nederland). 'Such an incredible write'(Annemaire Oster, de Volkskrant).

'Versteeg has created a character as old as literature. ... This is a powerful and convincing study of how the real victims of death are often the living left behind.' Eileen Battersby, (The Irish Times) 'Heartbreaking, free from voyeurism, and so wonderfully written that one can hardly put the book down' (Elle ,Germany)'This is a literary construct which is presented with such excitement and panache that it transforms fiction into something believable' (Arie Storm Het Parool). Versteeg carries her readers organically along towards dark human desires towards muddy ground where complexity and ambiguity reign, to where the monster is give a human voice. Feel good is entirely absent from Versteeg's sinister, desolate universe of high literature' (Jeroen Vullings, Vrij Nederland). 'Such an incredible write'(Annemaire Oster, de Volkskrant).

Author Information

Wytske Versteeg is a Dutch author and political scientist. In 2008 Versteeg published This is Not a Homeless Person (Dit is geen dakloze) about her experiences as a volunteer, mixing philosophical literature with journalistic observations of homelessness. Her debut novel De wezenlozen (Weightless) was nominated for the Opzij Literature Prize 2013 and long-listed for the AKO Literature Prize. The Boy is Versteeg's second novel and won the BNG Bank Literature Prize (BNG Nieuwe Literatuurprijs) in 2014 and was longlisted for the prestigious Libris Literature Prize. It has also been translated into German, Italian, Turkish and Danish.

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