The Woman Who Fed The Dogs. Kristien Hemmerechts

The Woman Who Fed The Dogs

MEDEA MEETS DEXTER

The most hated woman in Belgium sits in her prison cell preparing for imminent release, laboring through the memories of her former life. Obsessive and reflective, yet crucially lacking in remorse, Odette’s testimony is a tricky script to untangle. Based on the real-life events of Michelle Martin, ex-wife of the notorious child abductor, murderer and serial rapist, Marc Dutroux, this is a powerful and intelligent fictionalized account of the inner workings of Michelle Martin’s mind before, during, and after the crimes that shook a nation in the 1990s.

In The Woman Who Fed the Dogs, Hemmerechts has produced a daring novel—at once tragic, odious, and compelling—that positions the reader uncomfortably close to the human behind these unforgivable acts.

Praise for The Woman Who Fed the Dogs

‘Kristien Hemmerechts didn’t write an apology for an inhuman woman, but simply a very good novel’

De Volkskrant

‘As is the case with the best written of books, it is not what is said, but what is not said that makes the writing so accomplished’

For Books’ Sake

‘The narrative is impossible for the reader to escape, unknowingly and at most points unwillingly, you are dragged into her world’

Exeposé

‘The naturalness of this reconstruction of a life is mind-blowing’

PANTHEON BOEKHANDEL

‘With unnerving conviction, this novel inhabits the mind, heart and voice of Belgium’s ‘most hated woman’, the ex-wife of murderer Marc Dutroux – the authenticity makes for a compelling narrative’

BLAKE MORRISON

‘The Woman Who Fed the Dogs is a deconstruction of identity. Without sympathising or showing understanding for Martin (Odette), Hemmerechts shows us the inner workings of the mind of a woman with a horrific past and an uncertain future’

Flanders Today

‘Hemmerechts expertly shows us that nothing is simple or black and white: she writes superbly’

We Love This Book

‘As clear as crystal and very impressive’

KNACK

‘A daring, but successful endeavor to paint a probing psychological portrait of a complex personality; astonishing and sometimes provocative in all its directness’

Flanders Literature

‘Raises interesting questions about fear, dependence, guilt, penance and the problem of forgiveness’

Tzum

‘Hemmerechts expertly portrays the connections between sex and power and violence, and how those interact with racism. She also writes superbly about how our childhood forms us as adults’

We Love This Book

‘With this book Hemmerechts has created a very strong thinking exercise with an ingeniously developed main character. All this in a smooth style, which makes the book read like a train’

Hebban

‘Thematically, this story fits seamlessly inside an oeuvre in which parents and children, and in particular women trying to determine their position in relation to others (wherein power and sexuality are recurring motifs), occupy a central place’

Hanta

‘As a psychological novel, the book convinces’

De Leesclub van Alles

‘It grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let you go’

Nine Sisters

‘This penetrating portrait will haunt you long after reading, and throws up more questions than answers, as all good literature should’

NBD BIBLION

KRISTIEN HEMMERECHTS’ extensive output includes more than twenty novels, and numerous collections of short stories and autobiographical essays; a body of work that has frequently been praised by critics and awarded prizes. Never one to shy away from controversy, Hemmerechts is known for her forthright opinions on social issues. She used to teach English Literature at University College Brussels and now teaches Creative Writing at University College Louvain and The Drama School of Antwerp. She has been awarded the Flemish State Prize and the Frans Kellendonk Prize for her oeuvre.

PAUL VINCENT (UK), Honorary Senior Lecturer in Dutch at UCL, has been one of the most renowned translators of Dutch literature for the past twenty years. He was awarded the first David Reid Poetry Translation Prize (2006) for his translation of ‘Herinnering aan Holland’ (‘Memory of Holland’) by Hendrik Marsman and the Vondel Translation Prize 2012 for My Little War by Louis Paul Boon. His recent translations include The Hidden Force by Louis Couperus, While the Gods Were Sleeping by Erwin Mortier, short-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and (with John Irons) 100 Dutch-Language Poems: From the Medieval Period to the Present Day, joint winner of the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize 2016.

AUTHOR

‘Many people have asked me why I wrote this novel. “Think of me as an anthropologist,” I reply. I study human behavior, I want to understand its ins and outs, which does not imply approval. Of course I don’t approve of what she did or failed to do. Who would? But I think I now understand how it came to pass.’

TRANSLATOR

‘The Woman Who Fed the Dogs is an uncompromising, uncomfortable yet moving narrative, in which a moral-distorting mirror is held up to the reader. The principal challenge for me as a translator was to find an equivalent in English for the voice of the much-abused protagonist, which the author sustains throughout with such grim effectiveness.’

PUBLISHER

‘Kristien Hemmerechts is a very brave author. In this book she did the hardest thing a writer can impose upon herself by looking evil in the eye and entering the mind of a woman despised by everyone. The result is totally convincing and mind-blowing.’

Kristien Hemmerechts

the

Woman

who

Fed

the

Dogs

Translated from the Dutch

by Paul Vincent

WORLD EDITIONS

New York, London, Amsterdam

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

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 978-1-64286-007-8

ISBN E-book 978-1-64286-027-6

Скачать книгу