Reconstruction

by Karin Amatmoekrim, Sarah Timmer Harvey (Translator)

Ranging from the speculative ‘Jacques d’Or’ to the fiercely political ‘The Radical’, this collection is a journey through enjoyably contrasted considerations of what kind of world we are collectively creating. Amatmoekrim’s characters are frequently cheerful and entertaining though the writing is also pervasively and expertly threaded with threatening or mournful undertones, which creates a kind of haunting effect for the reader, a sense that all is not well or quite what it seems. This enriches the reader’s own sense of the workings of the world around them.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

32 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2020

About the author

Karin Amatmoekrim was born in 1976, in Paramaribo, Suriname. She emigrated to the Netherlands in 1981 and has been living in Amsterdam since 1999. She studied modern literature at the University of Amsterdam.

Het knipperleven was her first novel.

Reviews

[chester · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reluctantly, you return to your own world. As you join the line of disembarking passengers, you think of two things. Firstly, that it's probably easier to read a morning newspaper than a book. It would make the transition to reality, which causes you to die a tiny bit each day, a little less jarring.

– from "The Radical"

great insights here from Mw Amatmoekrim, getting inside the skulls of her subjects. "The Radical" is the key story in the collection, with references to "Love in the Time of Cholera" and "Beloved", and an unexpected snap in the plot.

[Jayme · Rating 3 out of 5]

A small collection of five flash fiction pieces. Most of the stories felt a little beige. The important stuff was what was left unsaid, but I found myself wishing more had been said. The fourth story, 'The Radical' was wild. Not sure how I feel about it at all. It's told in the second person present and the story slowly builds up to a bad thing that happens and then the author kind of self-inserts into the story and blames you as the reader for the bad thing. 'Would it have been better to turn away a page earlier; to leave Martin to his fate, to be able to say to yourself: This isn't me? It doesn't matter because you kept reading, and you were him when you raped your wife. Do you regret it? Or are you ashamed that you found it so easy to assume his identity?'. A bit of a stretch, I'd say.

Part of Strangers Press beautiful Yeoyu chapbook series focused on the Netherlands. Each series has a unique art style and highlights new and unknown voices. I hope they continue with this project. https://www.strangers.press/