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Marente
de Moor
The Bastard
2023
Tom Wilenski, a washed-up journalist, is given the task of writing one last report: about a group of women rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean Sea. Once aboard their nameless ship, he feels trapped. The women believe he holds the wrong opinions and want to get rid of him, but the Italian coast guard refuses the ship entry into the ports. Then, they decide to embark on a new rescue mission. Food and fuel run out, the euphoria of the rescued men turns into despair, and as if by magic, both Sicily and Malta disappear from the sea. Tom wonders if he will ever leave the ship alive.
*The Bastard* touches on current themes and is a sharp novel about the age-old tradition of venerating women who sacrifice their bodies for their ideals.
Tom Wilenski, a washed-up journalist, is given the task of writing one last report: about a group of women rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean Sea. Once aboard their nameless ship, he feels trapped. The women believe he holds the wrong opinions and want to get rid of him, but the Italian coast guard refuses the ship entry into the ports. Then, they decide to embark on a new rescue mission. Food and fuel run out, the euphoria of the rescued men turns into despair, and as if by magic, both Sicily and Malta disappear from the sea. Tom wonders if he will ever leave the ship alive.
*The Bastard* touches on current themes and is a sharp novel about the age-old tradition of venerating women who sacrifice their bodies for their ideals.
Foon
Sometimes it sounds like the blare of a trumpet. Sometimes like a prehistoric beast. It's something tectonic, Nadja and Lev say to each other. But these sounds didn’t always hang in the air above their house in the Russian woods. Once, the biologist couple ran a sanctuary for orphaned bear cubs there, but the volunteers no longer come, and while Lev loses his memory, Nadja battles against hers. Where has everyone gone? What happened in the year they’d rather not remember?
*Foon* shows how lonely people, far from the fractured society they have fled, relate to their loved ones, to history, and to the animal world they are part of. When all certainty falls away, it is the imagination that keeps them standing.
*Foon* shows how lonely people, far from the fractured society they have fled, relate to their loved ones, to history, and to the animal world they are part of. When all certainty falls away, it is the imagination that keeps them standing.
Cozy tales
2015
After her novels, Marente de Moor now ventures into the art of the short story, which do not fall short in intensity and imagination compared to her well-known work. The people she describes in their daily lives all yearn for intimacy but do not easily find it with others. Against the backdrop of their cozy interiors and habits, this absence stands out tragically, and only imagination offers solace.
A happily married man suddenly turns out to possess special gifts; a young woman spies on her neighbors through Ebay, and two retired sailors search for a missing island without their wives. How cozy is it really in these tragicomic tales?
After her novels, Marente de Moor now ventures into the art of the short story, which do not fall short in intensity and imagination compared to her well-known work. The people she describes in their daily lives all yearn for intimacy but do not easily find it with others. Against the backdrop of their cozy interiors and habits, this absence stands out tragically, and only imagination offers solace.
A happily married man suddenly turns out to possess special gifts; a young woman spies on her neighbors through Ebay, and two retired sailors search for a missing island without their wives. How cozy is it really in these tragicomic tales?
Roundhay, garden scene
2013
On September 16, 1890, a man took the train from Dijon to Paris, and after that, nothing was ever heard from him again."
Thus, in the first sentence of *Roundhay, Garden Scene*, the main character, an inventor, disappears. In his luggage are fully developed ideas, ready to be patented. But along the way, doubt creeps in. Do his thoughts truly belong to him? And can he take responsibility for the consequences of his invention? In the new century, his son searches for him and discovers who benefited from the disappearance, but also how difficult it has become to truly vanish without a trace.
*Roundhay, Garden Scene* is a tragicomic, wistful novel about our growing desire to capture things for posterity and a son's desperate attempt to make a good impression on a vanished father. The story is based on the life of Louis Le Prince (1842 - ?), the inventor who made the film *Roundhay Garden Scene* years before Edison and Lumière came out with their moving images.
On September 16, 1890, a man took the train from Dijon to Paris, and after that, nothing was ever heard from him again."
Thus, in the first sentence of *Roundhay, Garden Scene*, the main character, an inventor, disappears. In his luggage are fully developed ideas, ready to be patented. But along the way, doubt creeps in. Do his thoughts truly belong to him? And can he take responsibility for the consequences of his invention? In the new century, his son searches for him and discovers who benefited from the disappearance, but also how difficult it has become to truly vanish without a trace.
*Roundhay, Garden Scene* is a tragicomic, wistful novel about our growing desire to capture things for posterity and a son's desperate attempt to make a good impression on a vanished father. The story is based on the life of Louis Le Prince (1842 - ?), the inventor who made the film *Roundhay Garden Scene* years before Edison and Lumière came out with their moving images.
The Dutch maiden
2011
Summer 1936. Janna, a young Dutch fencer, is sent by her father on a train to apprentice with his old friend, maître Egon von Bötticher. Egon, a hussar who returned wounded and embittered from World War I, spends his days on an isolated estate near Aachen. There, he teaches two strikingly handsome twin brothers and organizes bloody duels for students.
Within the gates of this peculiar world, Janna, intrigued by her aloof maître, begins searching for answers. What happened between him and her father, and who is left to settle the score? Gradually, the outside world intrudes upon life at the estate, leading to a dramatic conclusion.
Summer 1936. Janna, a young Dutch fencer, is sent by her father on a train to apprentice with his old friend, maître Egon von Bötticher. Egon, a hussar who returned wounded and embittered from World War I, spends his days on an isolated estate near Aachen. There, he teaches two strikingly handsome twin brothers and organizes bloody duels for students.
Within the gates of this peculiar world, Janna, intrigued by her aloof maître, begins searching for answers. What happened between him and her father, and who is left to settle the score? Gradually, the outside world intrudes upon life at the estate, leading to a dramatic conclusion.
The Transgressor
2007
In the winter of 1985, corporal Vitali Kirillov witnesses a defection from the Soviet Union: a subordinate suddenly finds himself on the other side of the border and disappears into the woods. Eight years later, when the Soviet Union no longer exists, he decides to search for the refugee.
Immersed in the eccentric Russian immigrant life of Amsterdam, nothing comes of his plans for a long time, but a laid-back Dutch girl convinces him to continue the search together. Then chance leads him to the shocking truth.
In the winter of 1985, corporal Vitali Kirillov witnesses a defection from the Soviet Union: a subordinate suddenly finds himself on the other side of the border and disappears into the woods. Eight years later, when the Soviet Union no longer exists, he decides to search for the refugee.
Immersed in the eccentric Russian immigrant life of Amsterdam, nothing comes of his plans for a long time, but a laid-back Dutch girl convinces him to continue the search together. Then chance leads him to the shocking truth.
Peterburgs Tales
1999
Sketches from the Surreal Reality of Contemporary Saint Petersburg.
"Saint Petersburg was built by a madman. The people who voluntarily stay there, including myself, are also mad: initially, Peter the Great had to force people to settle in this uninhabitable city."
Thus says Marente de Moor about the city where she has lived and worked for years. The grey politics of the Moscow Kremlin have no hold over Saint Petersburg, the world's northernmost metropolis. In her humorous sketches of everyday city life, the author reveals that behind the reality of ongoing economic crisis and organized crime lies a madness that governs daily life: bears live in buses on the streets, clergy train fascists to become war monks, and plumbers are best paid in vodka. That, by the way, is about the only thing readily available.
Sketches from the Surreal Reality of Contemporary Saint Petersburg.
"Saint Petersburg was built by a madman. The people who voluntarily stay there, including myself, are also mad: initially, Peter the Great had to force people to settle in this uninhabitable city."
Thus says Marente de Moor about the city where she has lived and worked for years. The grey politics of the Moscow Kremlin have no hold over Saint Petersburg, the world's northernmost metropolis. In her humorous sketches of everyday city life, the author reveals that behind the reality of ongoing economic crisis and organized crime lies a madness that governs daily life: bears live in buses on the streets, clergy train fascists to become war monks, and plumbers are best paid in vodka. That, by the way, is about the only thing readily available.
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