On a cold night, Max - a hedonistic, astronomer who loves fast cars, nice clothes and women - picks up Onno, a cerebral chaotic philologist who cannot bear the banalities of everyday life. They are like fire and water. But when they learn they were conceived on the same day, it is clear that something extraordinary is about to happen.

Like the larger anthology after which this elegant book is named, the petite version begins with Warning by Jenny Joseph (title is the first line of the poem). The resolution and confidence towards ageing is what characterises When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple . This honest approach has made readers fall in love with it over and over again. Here one can enjoy powerful excerpts and ...

Roy Edwards's vibrant translation conveys the satirical and innovative style of Multatuli's autobiographical polemic. In his introduction, R. P. Meijer discusses the author's tempestuous life and career, the controversy the novel aroused and its unusual narrative structure.

A classic of post-war European literature, this is the tale of a man at the limits of physical and mental endurance beyond the end of the civilised world. It is about a Dutch geologist Alfred Issendorf who, haunted by the ghost of his scientist father, hopes to win fame by being the first to identify craters in the landscape made by meteorites.