{"title":"Erwin Mortier","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"stammered-songbook-book-erwin-mortier-9781782270218","title":"Stammered Songbook","description":"\u003cp\u003e'My mother, a house that is slowly collapsing, a bridge dancing to a tremor.'\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIt started when she could no longer remember the word for 'book'. Then her mind, her language and her identity began to slip away.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is Erwin Mortier's moving, exquisitely observed memoir of his mother's descent into dementia, as a once-flamboyant woman who loved life and pleasure becomes a shuffling, ghostlike figure wandering through the house. Piecing together the fragments of her lost life, and his own childhood, Mortier asks: what do we become when we lose the repertoire of habits and words that make us who we are? How well do we really know our families? How do you say goodbye to someone who is still there and yet not, suspended between life and death? Stammered Songbook is a heartbreaking and poetic expression of a son's love; an extraordinary hymn to language; a meditation on time, mortality and how, eventually, we all unravel into memories.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Superb, staggering and even more... At once a clinical observation, a cry of love, a farewell and a meditation. A work of considerable significance' \u003cem\u003eHumanité\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Erwin Mortier has surpassed himself. This is more than just an immensely touching confessional memoir about Alzheimer's disease. It is an essential book. Overwhelming. Mortier unearths at least one diamond on every page' \u003cem\u003eDe Standaard\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'A wonderful source of sustenance to survive the shipwreck' \u003cem\u003eLibération\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'In this painfully beautiful book it is ultimately love that persists despite everything, the love  of a son for his mother. Heart-rending' \u003cem\u003ede Telegraaf\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'It makes no difference what subject Erwin Mortier settles upon. Everything he describes gains that characteristic splendour, that unmistakable, unique sound. Golden tragedy' \u003cem\u003eOpzij\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eErwin Mortier (1965) made his mark in 1999 with his debut novel Marcel, which was awarded several prizes in Belgium and the Netherlands, and  received acclaim throughout Europe. In the following years he quickly built up a reputation as of one the leading authors of his generation. His novel While the Gods were Sleeping received the AKO Literature Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in the Netherlands. His latest work, Stammered Song Book, a mother's book of hours,'  a raw yet tender elegy about illness and loss, was met with unanimous praise. Mortier's evocative descriptions bring past worlds brilliantly to life.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49552870179089,"sku":"GOR007138025","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49568465486097,"sku":"GOR006493012","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50333387260177,"sku":"CIN1782270213A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51325227794705,"sku":"CIN1782270213VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1782270213.jpg?v=1777628617"},{"product_id":"marcel-book-erwin-mortier-9780099448662","title":"Marcel","description":"The narrator is a ten year old boy who lives with his grandparents in a Flemish village. His grandmother guards the family dead with fierce determination, arranging and re-arranging their photographs in a special cabinet, talking to them and arguing with them. The cabinet is an extension of heaven, with its own purgatory and hell: their place in his grandmother's favour is marked by their proximity to a statue of the Blessed Virgin. But, one image is always next to the Virgin: Marcel, who died young, far away and for whom there is no grave. How did he die? His laughing eyes, staring out from a face already obliterated by the sun, give nothing away. Only when the boy uncovers letters that hint at a hidden past, does he decide to learn who Marcel was, and why the circumstances of his death remain so painful.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49554289885457,"sku":"GOR002648914","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49614823620881,"sku":"GOR013671946","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0099448661.jpg?v=1751443882"},{"product_id":"while-the-gods-were-sleeping-book-erwin-mortier-9781782270171","title":"While the Gods Were Sleeping","description":"The story of the First World War told through the eyes of Helena, a young woman in love with a British soldier, who in her diaries tries to master words in order to describe the indescribable ...","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49598366286097,"sku":"GOR011240094","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49606183289105,"sku":"GOR005916980","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50953763651857,"sku":"CIN1782270175G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53121827864849,"sku":"GOR006949375","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1782270175.jpg?v=1777629078"},{"product_id":"while-the-gods-were-sleeping-book-erwin-mortier-9781782270799","title":"While the Gods Were Sleeping","description":"'It sounds dreadful,' I said to him one day. 'But actually the war is the best thing that ever happened to me.' Helena's mother always said she was a born poetess. It was not a compliment. Now an old woman, Helena looks back on her life and tries to capture the past, filling notebook after notebook with memories of her respectable, rigid upbringing, her unyielding mother, her loyal father, her golden-haired brother. She remembers how, at their uncle's country house in the summer of 1914, their stately bourgeois life of good manners, white linen and afternoon tea collapsed into ruins. And how, with war, came a kind of liberation amidst the mud and rubble-and the appearance of a young English photographer who transformed her existence.  Lyrical and tender, filled with images of blazing intensity, While the Gods Were Sleeping asks how it is possible to record the dislocation of war; to describe the indescribable. It is a breathtaking novel about the act of remembering, how the past seeps into our lives and how those we have lost leave their trace in the present.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49646710358289,"sku":"GOR010579495","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49947040055569,"sku":"GOR006911580","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50401236943121,"sku":"CIN1782270795VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52107121295633,"sku":"CIN1782270795G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1782270795.jpg?v=1777629547"},{"product_id":"marcel-book-erwin-mortier-9781782270188","title":"Marcel","description":"The debut novel by the great Flemish writer Erwin Mortier, Marcel vividly describes the history of a family in a Flemish village, bowed by the weight of history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50390717694225,"sku":"CIN1782270183VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50401227243793,"sku":"CIN1782270183G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52108647039249,"sku":"GOR006215472","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1782270183.jpg?v=1777628578"},{"product_id":"my-fellow-skin-book-erwin-mortier-9781782270195","title":"My Fellow Skin","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn this story about love as second skin, Mortier remains true to the perspective of his dazzling debut, Marcel, looking at the world through the eyes of an observant and impressionable young boy, Anton. As he grows up, each tentative step on the path to adulthood brings knowledge, understanding and responsibility. He finds solace in a friendship with Willem and believes he has found a way to deal with his increasingly uneasy relationship with life. But this bond introduces a new emotional hurdle for Anton, an awakening love that gives him his own identity and envelops him like a skin. The subtlety with which Mortier describes a young man's experiences and feelings makes this an extraordinarily touching tale, a tender story of love, innocence and protection, and of painful loneliness when things fall apart.\u003c\/p\u003e    \u003cp\u003e'This is a Bildungsroman which is related to much European literature from Proust and Mann onwards... peculiarly unforgettable' AS Byatt, \u003cem\u003eGuardian\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e    \u003cp\u003e'A sparkling novel with a thunderous effect [...] a Flemish song of truth and semblance' \u003cem\u003eVrij Nederland   \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e    \u003cp\u003eErwin Mortier (1965) made his mark in 1999 with his debut novel \u003cem\u003eMarcel, which was awarded several prizes in Belgium and the Netherlands, and  received acclaim throughout Europe. In the following years he quickly built up a reputation as of one the leading authors of his generation. His novel \u003cem\u003eWhile the Gods were Sleeping\u003c\/em\u003e received the AKO Literature Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in the Netherlands. His latest work, \u003cem\u003eStammered Song Book\u003c\/em\u003e, a mother's book of hours,'  a raw yet tender elegy about illness and loss, was met with unanimous praise. Mortier's evocative descriptions bring past worlds brilliantly to life.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ LIKE_NEW \/ SBYB","offer_id":50401230094609,"sku":"CIN1782270191LN","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1782270191.jpg?v=1759231308"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-ie\/collections\/author-books-by-erwin-mortier.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}