Jens Christian Grøndahl & Sana Valiulina

Jens Christian Grøndahl is one of the most successful Danish authors of the moment. His work has been translated into sixteen languages and includes Stilte in oktober, Lucca, Indian Summer, Hartslag, Veranderend licht and Piazza Bucarest. Grøndahl is praised for his minimalist portraits and refined writing style. This month, Rode handen is published, a story about a woman who became involved with the Red Army Faction in Germany. Rode handen is an impressive novel about the power the past can exert over us.

“Grøndahl knows that the great themes of love, betrayal, farewell and death can only be explored with the most refined means, otherwise they will not reveal their secret.” — T. van Deel in Trouw

“I fear I am addicted to Grøndahl.” — Arnon Grunberg in NRC Handelsblad

Sana Valiulina was born in Estonia and studied philology and Norwegian in Moscow. There she met her future Dutch husband, and for him she moved to Amsterdam in 1989. There she wrote, in Dutch, her first novel Het kruis and later the novella collection Vanuit nergens met liefde. This spring, her magnificent novel Didar en Faroek marks her major literary breakthrough. In the book she fictionalises the life stories of her parents; it is both an unmistakable reckoning with Stalin’s Soviet dictatorship and a “light” novel about faith in humanity and the pitfalls of love.