The Portrait: A Novel - Softcover

Otten, Willem Jan

3.38

768 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1922247537 ISBN 13: 9781922247537

Publisher: Scribe Publications Pty Ltd., 2015

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‘If you, like me, come into the world white and completely blank, with nothing on you at all, you are totally dependent on what they make of you.’

A young painter, loved for his fine and true-to-life portraits, receives a commission that is unlike any he’s had before: make a portrait of a dead boy. ‘You will save a life with it,’ says the boy’s extremely rich father. The painter knows he will have to surpass himself. He takes on the job. But who was the boy? Why is he dead? Why, when the painting is finished, does the father not come to collect it? And why does the artist undertake this painting?

The Portrait is a thrilling novel about the desire to bring someone into the world. But it is also about love and death, betrayal and trust, and truth and falsehood.

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About the Author:

Willem Jan Otten, who was born in 1951, is a multi-award-winning Dutch poet, essayist, playwright, and novelist. His novel The Portrait, published in Holland as Specht en zoon (‘Specht and Son’), was awarded that country’s prestigious literary award, the Libris Literary Prize, in 2005.

Review:

"This little novella by renowned Dutch poet, playwright and essayist Willem Jan Otten is one of the strangest and more enchanting works I have come across in some time ... While the work operates partly as a meditation on the act of creation, the extraordinary twin stories of love, desire and betrayal that carry it are revealed with the skill and timing of a psychological thriller. It poses questions for the reader at every turn and constantly surprises with the secrets it withholds, even to the last page ... This translation by award-winning David Colmer makes a remarkable and intriguing work available in English." —Liam Davison, Weekend Australian

"An elegant and absorbing meditation on art and life, deception and revelation." —Cameron Woodhead, The Age

"This is a book worth reading and rereading ... The author is a master in story-telling and he plays with secrets and riddles that he leaves to us, the readers, to unravel. It is amazing how he builds his case in this relatively short but thrilling story." — Dutch Courier

"Otten recounts an exciting story. The different plots weave cleverly together and quite often the twists in the story surprise the reader....Otten connects in a very clever way the creation of art with the creation of life." — Parool

"Willem Jan Otten surpasses himself ... His new novel sings in places, more than I have ever heard before. Not Gregorian chants but Ottenorian. Read this book with your ears wide open." — Vrij Nederland

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