The Convert

‘A gritty yet melancholy account of war and memory and art that may remind some readers of the work of the German writer W. G. Sebald…Urbain Martien was a man of another time. This serious and dignified book is old-fashioned, too, in the pleasant sense that it seems built to last.’ * New York Times on War and Turpentine *
‘Every detail has the heightened luminosity of poetry…The book has such convincing density of detail, with the quiddities of a particular life so truthfully rendered, that I was reminded of a phrase from Middlemarch: “an idea wrought back to the directness of sense, like the solidity of objects”. Hertmans’ achievement is exactly that…War and Turpentine has all the markings of a future classic.’ * Guardian on War and Turpentine *
‘[Hertmans] recreates the lives and losses of the deceased with enormous empathy and skill…Like many family dramas, this is a work that veers between sense and sentimentality. It is in many ways an old-fashioned book, and pleasingly so…It is sympathetic remembrance, shaped into lasting elegy.’ * The Australian on War and Turpentine *
‘A masterly treatise on the interconnections of life, art, memory, and heartbreaking love…Hertmans’s prose, with a deft translation from McKay, works with the same full palette as Urbain Martien’s paintings: vivid, passionate—and in the end, life-affirming.’ * Publishers Weekly on War and Turpentine *
‘Hertmans travels the road trod by Vigdis and brings to life the hardships she endured along the way, all the whole intertwining his own journey of discovery.’ * Herald Sun *
‘This is a novel to recommend to poets, historians, gardeners and crafters; to those who know well that the reward is not solely in conclusion, but also in the unfolding interim.’ * Canberra Times *
’The Convert involves meticulous research and carefully detailed prose, binding together a fascinating historical story…[Stefan Hertmans] has again produced an immensely fine work, which is as affecting as it is tragic.’ * Otago Daily Times *
‘The Convert, briskly translated from the Dutch by David McKay, is an imaginative flight, full of darkness and light, lively characters, life-altering conflicts, violence and kindness, birth, death and, oddly, a lot of snakes. It is, as it says right there on the cover, nothing less than a novel. And it’s a really good one.’ * New York Times *

Born in 1951, Stefan Hertmans has published novels, short-story collections, essays and poetry. In 1995 he was awarded the three-yearly Flemish poetry prize. He has also received two nominations for the VSB Poetry Prize. His most recent novel, War and Turpentine, was longlisted for the International Man Booker Prize and the Best Translated Book Award.

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