“No book published in the last ten years has had a bigger impact on me, one of those books that speaks directly to your gut, a revelation. … [T]here’s something unclassifiable about the way Nescio goes about his stories, as if every sentence is a surprise even to the writer, a spontaneous irruption. At the same time, there’s nobody less pretentious and more down-to-earth.”—Peter Orner, author of Maggie Brown & Others, LitHub’s “26 Books from the Last Decade that More People Should Read”
“His utter simplicity goes hand-in-hand with a great command of humour, irony, matter-of-factness, understatement and sentiment (never sentimtality or self-pity) all of which miraculously balance each other out. … Nescio is essentially a lyricist, a poet writing in prose.” —Dutch Foundation for Literature
“In every respect the work of Nescio represents an exception to the calm, bourgeois realism of the early twentieth century. … He was arguably the most non-conformist writer of his time. . . . In his stories Nescio created a number of extraordinary characters, who have become legendary in Dutch culture.” —Theo Hermans, A Literary History of the Low Countries
“Though he published few stories, his position in Dutch literature is a very special one.” —Cassell’s Encyclopedia of World Literature
“Nescio’s utter simplicity goes hand-in-hand with a great command of humour, irony, matter-of-factness, understatement and sentiment (never sentimentality or self-pity), all of which miraculously balance each other out. He is essentially a lyricist, a poet writing in prose.” —Dutch Foundation for Literature
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