Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer (b. 1968), a classicist by training, made his literary debut with a poetry collection in 1999 that was an homage to the experimental poetry of his great models, Pindar and Lucebert. In the years that followed, in addition to poetry, he has written stage plays, essays, columns, travel accounts, stories, political satires, and four novels written in the spirit of Rabelais. His most recent poetry collection, Idyllen, published in 2015, became the first single work of poetry to ever win in the grand slam of the three major Dutch poetry awards¿the VSB, Jan Campert, and Awater.

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer¿s moving and addictive masterpiece of European identity, nostalgia and the end of an era.

`A masterpiece: grandiose style, brilliant and rich. It will defy the ages¿ Trouw (The Netherlands)