During
the winter of 1944 in occupied Holland,
eleven-year-old
Jeroen
is evacuated to a small fishing communit on the desolate
coast
of Friesland, where he meets Walt, a young Canadian
soldier
with
the liberating forces. Their relationship immerses the young boy
in a
tumultuous world of emotional and sexual experience, suddenly
curtailed
when the Allies move on and Walt disappoars. Back home
in Amsterdam, a city in the throes
of liberation fever, Jeroen search
for the
soldier he has lost. A child's fears and confused emotion
have
rarely been described with such depth of understanding, and
seen
as it is from the child's viewpoint it invites total empathy.
Rudi van
Dantzig is artistic director of the Dutch National Ballet and a leading
international choreographer. Published In Dutch in 1986, For a Lost Soldier received
the Geertgan Lubberhuizen prize for best
literary
debut. The film of the book won the Best Film and Audience
Prize
at Turin in
1993.
"A
literary happening not soon to be forgotten"
- NRC Handelsblad, Amsterdam
"A
beautifully chronicled document of wartime life
- Gay Times, London
"I
was filled with admiration for the way in which Rudi van Dantzig has transformed
a difficult and unusual autobiographical theme into
a compelling
literary work' - Times Literary Supplement, London
Cover:
For a Lost Soldier, courtesy of Fortissimo Films