Afterlight - by Jaap Robben (Paperback)

About the Book

"This moving novel gives voice to the silent grief of the mothers of stillborn children. The young free-spirited florist Frieda grew up in a strictly Catholic environment in the 1960s. When she steps onto a frozen river on a late winter afternoon, little does she know that everything is about to change for her. On the ice she meets the married Otto. They experience a love that begins stormy and ends fatefully: Frieda becomes pregnant - a scandal in the world in which she moves. And so she must never be the mother of her secret child. For decades she kept her memories of this episode in her life to herself. But the grief for the lost child remains, despite the later marriage, despite the son she still has. At the age of eighty-one, Frieda is suddenly alone again. The silent sorrow returns with force. Only then does she dare to face her story - and to share it. With Afterlight, inspired by true events, Robben not only pulls back the veil on Frieda's story, but also shines a light on the experiences of countless women between the 1950s and 1980s. The result is an impressive story about buried female trauma, caused by society, organized religion and the dominant social mores."--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

"With its tight sentences and a fast pace, Afterlight moves like detective fiction. It's a poignant novel in which a single, pregnant woman is mistreated in her conservative society; she remains resilient and determined to honor her baby's memory." -Foreword Reviews

The young free-spirited florist Frieda grew up in a strictly Catholic environment in the 1960s. When she steps onto a frozen river on a late winter afternoon, little does she know that everything is about to change for her. On the ice she meets the married Otto. They experience a love that begins stormy and ends fatefully: Frieda becomes pregnant - a scandal in the world in which she moves. And so she must never be the mother of her secret child. For decades she kept her memories of this episode in her life to herself. But the grief for the lost child remains, despite the later marriage, despite the son she still has.
At the age of eighty-one, Frieda is suddenly alone again. The silent sorrow returns with force. Only then does she dare to face her story - and to share it.
With Afterlight, inspired by true events, Robben not only pulls back the veil on Frieda's story, but also shines a light on the experiences of countless women between the 1950s and 1980s. The result is an impressive story about buried female trauma, caused by society, organized religion and the dominant social mores.

Review Quotes

Praise for Afterlight

"With its tight sentences and a fast pace, Afterlight moves like detective fiction. It's a poignant novel in which a single, pregnant woman is mistreated in her conservative society; she remains resilient and determined to honor her baby's memory."-Foreword Reviews

"Jaap Robben steers well clear of sentimentality in this delicately wrought book about loss (...) and once again shows himself to be a master of short, restrained sentences." --Trouw

"Tender and sensitive. Masterful how Jaap Robben describes Frieda's life." --NPO Radio 4 Book of the Week

"Intriguing" --de Volkskrant

"Nice, spot on" --NRC Handelsblad

"Robben knows how to arouse emotion with his stories about outcasts." --The Standard

"Robben once again shows himself to be a master of short, restrained sentences that keep sentimentality at bay. Afterlight is an impressive and delicate book about loss." --Fidelity

"In Afterlight, Robben tells the difficult story of many women about a time that is not that far behind us. It produces a beautiful novel that offers compassion." --Dagblad van het Noorden

"There is not a sentence that does not shine or is charged in Jaap Robben's astonishing novel about lifelong suffering. Once you have read the impressive Afterlight, it is impossible to forget the story." --Het Parool

"Robben gives voice to a deep-seated feminism in the form of his powerful protagonist. As a reader, you find yourself breathing a sigh of relief knowing that nowadays we live in a more just and equitable society -- although a look back over your shoulder also doubles as a word of warning about the future." --Humo

"One of the best books of the year" --Mezza Book of the month

Praise for Summer Brother, Longlisted for the International Booker Prize

"A deeply humane novel centered on a disabled man, his heroic younger brother and an unreliable, partly criminal father living on an all but derelict site. The book is generous to all its flawed characters, is beautifully written, and humanizes lives of abject poverty on the edge of squalor and disaster." ―INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE, jury report

"Dutch author Jaap Robben's second novel shows us the shedding of innocence. Summer Brother, translated by David Doherty, shakes out over a hot summer, during that potent lull when characters so splendidly boil, burst and bloom...Summer Brother grapples with the consequences of carelessness and the abuse of power and trust, even if the violation is unintentional...Robben is wonderful at drawing characters with just a few deliberate strokes...Like a photographer shooting a portrait, Robben captures his subjects in Summer Brother in a focused close-up." --New York Times

"I just ADORED the novel Summer Brother. Bravo, bravo is what I have to say. It kind of saved me in a way." ―Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

"It's an impressive novel: a deceptively simple story of lives at the margin, with a child's viewpoint perfectly pitched and sustained, it is cleanly written and powerfully imagined. It reminded me of Claire Keegan's novella Foster, which has a girl narrator of a similar age, and is an outstanding book. But the challenges are greater here, as Robben deals with all kinds of inflammable material, and does it with such tact and understanding." --Hilary Mantel, be

About the Author

JAAP ROBBEN is a Dutch poet, playwright, performer, and acclaimed children's author. You Have Me to Love, his first novel for adults, won the 2014 Dutch Booksellers Award, the Dioraphte Prize, and the ANV Award for best Dutch debut. Robben was chosen as one of the featured debut authors at the 2018 Brooklyn Book Festival. Summer Brother, his second novel, was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2021. Afterlight is his third novel published by World Editions.

DAVID DOHERTY studied English and literary linguistics in Glasgow before moving to Amsterdam, where he has been working as a translator for over twenty years. His literary work includes novels by award-winning authors Marente de Moor, Peter Terrin and Alfred Birney. Summer Brother, his translation of Jaap Robben's Zomervacht, won the 2021 Vondel Translation Prize and was longlisted for the International Booker Prize.