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A LIVELY PICTURE OF THE BIZARRE FANTASY WORLD OF A LONELY ADOLESCENT
Inventive, dreamy Gieles lives with his father and a flock of geese on a plane-spotters’ campsite next to an airstrip. The surrounding landscape, reclaimed from the sea, is as isolated as Gieles himself. The fourteen-year-old boy is longing for the mysterious dreadlocked girl he’s met online, and for the affection of his absent mother, off on hapless missions to save the world. Gieles conceives a desperate, dangerous plan to attract his mother’s attention. He’ll be a hero—just like Captain Sully, who bravely landed on the Hudson after geese flew into his engines. This charmingly upbeat novel describes the fantasy-driven world of a teenage boy. At the same time, it tells the incredible story about how the Dutch turned water into land.
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Praise for Gliding Flight
‘A book you’ll feel homesick for as soon as you’ve closed it’
PETER BUWALDA, author of Bonita Avenue
‘A well-balanced, complete novel that stands out because of its many themes and quirky, eccentric characters, whose tragicomic character traits are movingly identifiable’
JURY, DIORAPHTE PRIZE
‘The Dutch Annie Proulx’
OPZIJ LITERATURE PRIZE
‘A captivating story about a heartwarming adolescent’
Algemeen Dagblad
‘A book you do not want to leave, and finish with a sigh of pleasure’
De Telegraaf
‘A lively, exciting and funny novel, which is told with great energy and momentum. A completely convincing picture of the bizarre fantasy world of a lonely adolescent’
DUTCH FOUNDATION FOR LITERATURE
‘Goemans shows, once again, how agile a narrator she is’
Trouw
‘Anne-Gine Goemans has written a very special and beautiful book’
De Volkskrant
‘A hip regional novel that is every bit as good as Joe Speedboat’
P F THOMÉSE, author of Shadowchild
‘I am particularly enthusiastic about this novel that’s both an adventurous boy’s book and a historical novel. The writing style is accessible with lots of humour’
INGE LEEST
‘An enjoyable read with captivating characters, well-paced plot, and the right amount of tension to keep the pages turning. Highly recommended’
Dutch News
‘Gliding Flight is one of the most engaging novels I’ve read in the past year or two. What makes the book so special is the vitality and vividness of the central figures: a deeply moving story’
JIM FOREST
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ANNE-GINE GOEMANS (1971) is a Dutch journalist and novelist. Goemans debuted in 2008 with the acclaimed novel Unfolding Grounds. It won the Anton Wachter Prize for best Dutch debut and was longlisted for the prestigious Libris Literature Prize. For her second novel, Gliding Flight, Goemans won the Dioraphte Literature Prize and the German M-Pioneer Award for literary newcomers. Gliding Flight has been translated into five languages and film rights have also been sold.
NANCY FOREST-FLIER is a New Jersey-born translator who moved to Europe in 1982 and has worked in the Netherlands since 1988. Her literary translations include The King by Kader Abdolah, Dissident for Life by Koenraad de Wolf, We and Me by Saskia de Coster, Mr. Miller by Charles den Tex, Departure Time by Truus Matti, Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, and most recently The Story of Shit by Midas Dekkers. Nancy also translates children’sliterature and has translated for numerous Dutch museums and institutes, including The Anne Frank House and the Kröller-Müller Museum (home to the world’s second largest Van Gogh collection).
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AUTHOR
‘Just in front of my house is the statue of Hansje Brinker. Everyone knows the legendary fairytale of the boy with his finger in the dike, who saved the Netherlands from the rising water. This legend inspired me to write this novel. My protagonist, Gieles, is a modern Hansje Brinker: he fights for the place where he and his loved ones live.’
TRANSLATOR
‘Gliding Flight, with its full cast of beautifully realized, well-rounded characters, required paying very close attention to voice. From the endearing Gieles to the obnoxious Tony, from Meike’s adolescent angst to her parents’ clueless concern, plus the whole parallel history of Sophia and Ide—each one of them is a unique flesh-and-blood person, and I had to make sure they stayed that way in their journey from Dutch to English.’
PUBLISHER
‘Anne-Gine Goemans’s writing reminds me of John Irving. It is full of fantasy and absurd situations, it’s fresh and alive, it’s funny and moving. It flows like a Dutch river and flies like an airplane, carefree and willful at the same time. Goemans is a fantastic storyteller.’
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Anne-Gine Goemans
Gliding Flight
Translated from the Dutch
by Nancy Forest-Flier
WORLD EDITIONS
New York, London, Amsterdam
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Published in the USA in 2019 by World Editions LLC, New York
Published in the UK in 2015 by World Editions Ltd., London
World Editions
New York/London/Amsterdam
Copyright © Anne-Gine Goemans, 2011
English translation copyright © Nancy Forest-Flier, 2015
Cover image © Mischa Keijser
Author’s portrait © Merlijn Doomernik
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data is available.
ISBN Trade paperback 978-1-64286-008-5
ISBN E-book 978-1-64286-029-0
First published as Glijvlucht in the Netherlands
