{"title":"Jan Jacob Slauerhoff","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"adrift-in-the-middle-kingdom-book-jan-jacob-slauerhoff-9781999944872","title":"Adrift in the Middle Kingdom","description":"Jan Jacob Slauerhoff (1898-1936) was a ship's doctor serving in south-east Asia, and is one of the most important twentieth-century Dutch-language writers. His 1934 novel Adrift in the Middle Kingdom (Het leven op aarde), is an epic sweep of narrative that takes the reader from 1920s Shanghai to a forgotten city beyond the Great Wall of China.  Slauerhoff's narrator is a Belfast ship's radio operator, desperate to escape the sea, who travels inland on a gun-runner's mission. He moves through extraordinary settings of opium salons, the house of a Cantonese watch-mender, the siege of Shanghai, the great flood on the western plains, and the discovery of oil by the uncomprehending overlord in the hidden city of Chungking. The fantasy ending transforms the novel from travelogue and adventure to existential meditation. But running like a thread of darkness through the story is opium, from poppy head harvesting to death through addiction. This translation by David McKay, winner of the 2018 Vondel Prize, is the first English edition of Slauerhoff's most accessible and enthralling novel. The Introduction is by Slauerhoff expert Arie Pos and Wendy Gan of the University of Hong Kong.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49571487809809,"sku":"GOR012357131","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49738128556305,"sku":"NGR9781999944872","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49808784752913,"sku":"GOR011598007","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1999944879.jpg?v=1751381676"},{"product_id":"forbidden-kingdom-book-jan-jacob-slauerhoff-9781906548889","title":"The Forbidden Kingdom","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA classic of early modernism \u003cem\u003eThe Forbidden Kingdom\u003c\/em\u003e (\u003cem\u003eHet Verboden Rijk\u003c\/em\u003e) is the masterwork of Jan Jacob Slauerhoff - a romantic tale of adventure, seafaring and colonialism, told through an experimental narrative.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn intoxicating mix of time travel and adventure, \u003cem\u003eThe Forbidden Kingdom\u003c\/em\u003e revolves around the Portuguese imperial outpost of Macao in China. Two men journey to the colony: the exiled sixteenth-century poet Luis de Camoes, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Lusiads\u003c\/em\u003e, and a twentieth-century ship's wireless operator. With their overlapping stories Slauerhoff draws his reader into a dazzling world of exoticism, betrayal and exile, where past and present merge and the possibility of death is never far away. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTranslated from the Dutch by the award-winning Paul Vincent, \u003cem\u003eThe Forbidden Kingdom\u003c\/em\u003e by Jan Jacob Slauerhoff is published by Pushkin Press.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJan Jacob Slauerhoff (1898-1936) was born in the Netherlands. After a sickly childhood, he studied medicine in Amsterdam before enlisting as a ship's surgeon with the Dutch East India Company, working on the infamous China-Java-Japan route. His first poetry collection, \u003cem\u003eArchipelago\u003c\/em\u003e (\u003cem\u003eArchipel\u003c\/em\u003e), was published in 1921, and he came to be regarded as one of the most important writers in Dutch - a poète maudit to compare to Baudelaire or Verlaine. A troubled life, which involved numerous sea voyages to the Orient, South America and Africa, as well as a marriage to the dancer Darja Collin, Slauerhoff contracted malaria on a journey to South Africa, and died.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50445161103633,"sku":"GOR013954137","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50470296879377,"sku":"GOR004929745","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1906548889.jpg?v=1758967285"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-jan-jacob-slauerhoff.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}