Listen - by Sacha Bronwasser (Paperback)

About the Book

"In 1989, twenty-year-old Marie jumps at the chance to work as au pair in Paris--even though it means dropping out of her prestigious art program in the Netherlands. The city, the language, the complicated French family she works for all quickly overshadow the turmoil and pain she'd been reckoning with in school. But years later, during the 2015 attacks in Paris, Marie is shocked to recognize her former teacher, the main reason she fled the Netherlands, pictured in aftermath, in the exact arrondissement where her previous employers live. The past she was sure she could leave behind comes flooding back, as do the questions she thought she could live with leaving unanswered"--

Book Synopsis

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2025

A twisty, slow-burn mystery set in Paris and the Netherlands that has become a Dutch sensation

In 1989, twenty-year-old Marie jumps at the chance to work as au pair in Paris--even though it means dropping out of her prestigious art program in the Netherlands. The city, the language, the complicated French family she works for all quickly overshadow the turmoil and pain she'd been reckoning with in school.

But years later, during the 2015 attacks in Paris, Marie is shocked to recognize her former teacher, the main reason she fled the Netherlands, pictured in aftermath, in the exact arrondissement where her previous employers live. The past she was sure she could leave behind comes flooding back, as do the questions she thought she could live with leaving unanswered.

Told in alternating voices, this "highly ingenious" (NRC) coming-of-age story asks important and haunting questions about the thin line between remembering and recording, seeing and being seen, coincidence and fate, revenge and reclamation--and what it means to walk this boundary.

Review Quotes

"I was engaged from the get-go by Bronwasser's Listen, a riveting exploration of how random crime can have lasting effects on people. Ably translated from the Dutch by David Colmer, the novel explores what it is to be young in a city not your own, free to adhere to whatever capricious whim you might want--only to be upended by circumstances far beyond your control."
--Sarah Weinman, The New York Times Book Review

"Listen is a meticulously constructed yet unnervingly quiet thriller that stays under readers' skin from start to finish. [A] unique, twisty meditation on terrorism, art and the influence of various media on our lives. It's so compellingly well-crafted that it invites rereading to fully appreciate certain lines--and its devastating title--once all is revealed."
--BookPage (starred review)

"Bronwasser makes the banal exceptional with an eye that not only looks but sees."
--Kirkus (starred review)

"Cannily constructed and gracefully written, this thought-provoking literary thriller offers a charcuterie board's worth of rewards."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"This psychological puzzler will keep readers engaged from start to finish."
--Library Journal

"[Bronwasser] grabs her readers by the throat with a meticulously constructed and convincing story that gets under your skin from the very first page."
--De Telegraaf

"Sacha Bronwasser describes Parisian life irresistibly, in a thought-provoking novel. It's a rare thing, a book that can be read as simply a 'good read' but with enough in it to make you think."
--de Volkskrant

"A highly ingenious novel that is also moving . . . Listen is somewhat reminiscent of W.F. Hermans and Peter Terrin, with its sense of a stalkerish, indefinable foreboding, while the story is nevertheless resolute and evocative, and told in a way that definitely rewards the reader."
--NRC

"Ingenious new novel . . . Masterfully constructed . . . A novel that you can only admire."
--Trouw

"Once you understand the full, wry relevance of the title on the very last pages, only then do you fully realise how masterfully constructed this compelling book is. The skilfully written, suspenseful story turns out to be an intelligent and ambiguous reflection on remembering and recording, on seeing and being seen, on coincidence and makeability, and on the ethics of art and of the appropriation of other people's stories. The question that continues to haunt you at the end is to what extent the novel is an act of revenge and, as such, an example of the unethical appropriation it denounces. Good, clever, deep. Without question premier league, this novel."
--Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, author of Grand Hotel Europa

About the Author

Sacha Bronwasser is a Dutch writer and art historian. For decades, she worked as art critic for De Volkskrant, while also curating exhibitions and writing and speaking about contemporary art for radio, television and on stage. In 2019, she made her fiction debut with the highly praised novel Niets is Gelogen, followed by the bestselling Luister (Listen) in 2023 and the short story collection De Lotgevallen in 2024. Listen was nominated for multiple literary awards, has been translated into several languages, and is currently being adapted into a feature film. Bronwasser lives on the Dutch coast.

David Colmer is the translator of more than eighty book-length works of Dutch-language literature and has won many prizes for his translations, including the International Dublin Literary Award, and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, both with novelist Gerbrand Bakker.