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A tense, thrilling, morally murky read, set in Nazi-occupied Antwerp and inspired by the author's own family history of collaboration during WWII
It is 1941, and Antwerp is in the grip of Nazi occupation. Young policeman Wilfried Wils has no intention of being a hero - but war has a way of catching up with people. When his idealistic best friend draws him into the growing resistance movement, and an SS commander tries to force him into collaborating, Wilfried's loyalties become horribly, fatally torn. As the beatings, destruction and round-ups intensify across the city, he is forced into an act that will have consequences he could never have imagined. Will asks what any of us would risk to fight evil.
About the author
Jeroen Olyslaegers (b. 1967) is a Flemish author and playwright. Will won four major prizes in the Netherlands and Flanders and is being translated into eight languages. He lives in Antwerp, on the Kruikstraat, where police helped the Nazis round up Jews during the Second World War.
David Colmer is a writer and translator. He translates Dutch literature in a wide range of genres including literary fiction, nonfiction, children's books, and poetry. He is a four-time winner of the David Reid Poetry Translation Prize and received the 2009 Biennial NSW Premier and PEN Translation Prize. His translation of Gerbrand Bakker's The Twin (Archipelago) was awarded the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and he received - along with Gerbrand Bakker - the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for Bakker's novel The Detour.
Summary
It is 1941, and Antwerp is in the grip of Nazi occupation. Young policeman Wilfried Wils has no intention of being a hero - but war has a way of catching up with people.
Additional text
"A brilliant, uncomfortable exploration of the moral compromises necessary to live alongside evil" -- The Times, Historical Fiction Book of the Year
"Constantly grapples with what the ordinary man might do when faced with a horror so huge that to resist might threaten his very survival. Olyslaegers bravely explores moral compromise, betrayal and collaboration - and throws our polarised times into sharp relief." -- The Observer
"A vital and endlessly frightening question: under the cosh of an occupier, who among us would actually risk our lives or livelihoods for the sake of principle, or a fellow citizen?" -- The Guardian
"I loved this book. Will is a vivid, complex, and captivating novel about the grubby moral compromises of life under occupation" -- Bart van Es, author of The Cut Out Girl
"A masterful book, a gripping epic, necessary and gorgeously written." -- Stefan Hertmans, author of War and Turpentine
Report
"A brilliant, uncomfortable exploration of the moral compromises necessary to live alongside evil" -- The Times, Historical Fiction Book of the Year
"Constantly grapples with what the ordinary man might do when faced with a horror so huge that to resist might threaten his very survival. Olyslaegers bravely explores moral compromise, betrayal and collaboration - and throws our polarised times into sharp relief." -- The Observer
"A vital and endlessly frightening question: under the cosh of an occupier, who among us would actually risk our lives or livelihoods for the sake of principle, or a fellow citizen?" -- The Guardian
"I loved this book. Will is a vivid, complex, and captivating novel about the grubby moral compromises of life under occupation" -- Bart van Es, author of The Cut Out Girl
"A masterful book, a gripping epic, necessary and gorgeously written." -- Stefan Hertmans, author of War and Turpentine
