Novel
Book Alpha
Het boek Alfa
Ivo Michiels · 1963
Synopsis
On New Year's Eve, four children led by an eight-year-old boy hesitate at a crossroads, in the mud, their pockets full from their round of good wishes: they are lost. Then comes the body of the book. In wartime, a sentry stands guard before a barracks: behind him, the measured tread of the soldiers; before him, chaos, and somewhere An, whom he would like to join without becoming a deserter. Motionless, he sees his childhood rise up: the orders of parents and teachers, the violence of the older boys, the processions, the first humiliations.
Context
The book appeared in 1963 from De Bezige Bij, in Amsterdam, and Ontwikkeling, in Antwerp; it opens a cycle of five volumes published until 1979 under an overall title, Au commencement était le verbe. The cycle speaks of war in the broad sense, between peoples, between individuals and within language, and Hugo Bousset sees in it the conjured memory of the hospital in Lübeck. It went through some fifteen editions in twenty years, and was translated into French in 1967 and into English in 1979.
Who it is for
A short novel, in Dutch, made up of a long stream of consciousness; translated into French and English.
Prizes and reception
The first part of the Alfa cycle, to which the Lexicon van literaire werken devotes an entire entry.