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A guardian angel recalls / Willem Frederik Hermans ; translated from the Dutch by David Colmer.
Van Pelt Library PT5844.H526 H3713 2021
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Hermans, Willem Frederik, 1921-1995, author.
- Standardized Title:
- Herinneringen van een engelbewaarder. English
- Language:
- Dutch
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Guardian angels--Fiction.
- Guardian angels.
- History.
- Netherlands.
- Hit-and-run drivers--Fiction.
- Hit-and-run drivers.
- Conduct of life--Fiction.
- Conduct of life.
- Netherlands--History--German occupation, 1940-1945--Fiction.
- Genre:
- Fiction.
- History.
- Historical fiction.
- Novels.
- Physical Description:
- 511 pages ; 17 cm
- Edition:
- First Archipelago Books edition.
- Place of Publication:
- Brooklyn, NY : Archipelago Books, 2021.
- Summary:
- ""One of the most beautiful novels that I've written." - Willem Frederik Hermans Alberegt, a public prosecutor and self-proclaimed "man of minor failings," speeds through Hook of Holland in his black Renault on May 9, 1940. His every move is guided by the cool and patient hand of a guardian angel. Flitting about from the hood of Alberegt's car to the rim of his windswept hat, the angel attempts to quell their unhappy ward's fears and secrets. (On occasion the heavenly narrator is so ashamed of Alberegt that they cover their own face with guardian wings.) The angel, musing for just a moment on the greater suffering of mankind, forgets a frenzied and lovelorn Alberegt at the wheel and Alberegt swerves into a small child crossing the road. This fatal event, on the eve of Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, spins the novel into a nightmare in which even expressions of empathy and humanity are edged out by cynicism and cruelty. Reminiscent of Georges Simenon, Albert Camus, and Kurt Vonnegut, A Guardian Angel Recalls is a brilliant and unnerving masterpiece."-- Provided by publisher.
- Local Notes:
- Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rebecca Pepper Sinkler Fund.
- Other Format:
- Online version: Hermans, Willem Frederik, 1921-1995. Guardian angel recalls.
- ISBN:
- 9781953861023
- 1953861024
- OCLC:
- 1232148278
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