A morose provincial inspector of roads in Aragon settles down to write the fable of the Snow Queen. The Netherlands has now been stretched into a vast country with Northern flatlands and hazardous Alpine ranges in the south. Kai and Lucia are circus illusionists, and when Kai is kidnapped, Lucia must rescue him from the Snow Queen's palace.
In the Dutch Mountains is an elegantly constructed story within a story, laced with the wit that characterises the work of this outstanding European writer.
A poet's fairy tale, elegant and beguiling
Cees Nooteboom stands as an impressive and inimitable voice among contemporary writers. - New York Times
Nooteboom is a fabulist who tells profound, elegant and disturbing stories, and meditates on the way stories are essential parts of our lives.
Nooteboom is a novelist of big themes, but he is never heavy-handed. His idea sneak up on you, appearing unexpectedly, breath-takingly, like angels hidden in abandoned cupboards. - Washington Post
A genuinely pan-European novel in both its subject and its style. It has the brilliance and disconcerting logic of a dream.
Cees Nooteboom was born in The Hague in 1933, and now lives in Amsterdam and on the island of Minorca. He is a poet and novelist who has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards such as the Pegasus Prize and the Aristeion Prize for his novels, which include Rituals (1983), The Following Story (1994), and All Souls' Day (2001). His books of travel writing, Roads to Santiago (1997) and Roads to Berlin (2012) have become backlist classics.