New Authors at Raft from Sebes & Van Gelderen Literary Agency

After a recent visit to the Netherlands and a meeting with Holland's only significant literary agent, Paul Sebes, we are going to be handling several Dutch authors from the Sebes & Van Gelderen Literary Agency in English Language markets.

The first group of titles Raft will be presenting include:

THE SUCCESSOR by Alex van Galen.

"Out of Parsifal we will create a religion". Adolf Hitler.

The Successor is an international thriller about mythology, Wagner, ancient crowning rituals and the last days of the Third Reich. The high paced story takes the reader to historical locations all over Europe, like Nürmberg, Vienna, The Benedictine Abbey in Vaals (Netherlands) and the mysterious castle Wewelsburg in Paderborn, also know as Himmler’s Camelot.

1946. A wounded SS-er, held captive in the cells of Nürmberg, warns the Dutch priest Xavier ter Linden that an important relic is about to fall into the hands of the Nazis. This relic is the holy spear that was used to pierce Jesus' side when he was hanging on the cross and it once belonged to Charlemagne and has since been passed on from emperor to emperor.

Sixty years later, Father Xavier is killed and a young monk is kidnapped. The next day, the monk’s brother, professor Daniel de Ruyter, receives a little notebook that belonged to the murdered priest. The killer and Interpol seem to be after the strange notes. The only person Daniel can trust is his childhood sweetheart, Eva. Together they have to run for their lives, while trying to solve the mystery that the old priest has kept hidden all these years. During a thrilling chase, Daniel and Eva discover stunning secrets about Wagner’s opera Parsifal, the last days of the Third Reich and one of it’s most insane and enigmatic leaders, Heinrich Himmler.

Alex van Galen (1965) studied literature in Utrecht ( the Netherlands). He is a well known screenwriter who penned dozens of successful televison series. In october this year his script Deadwater was sold to Hollywood.

Dutch Publisher Prometheus bought the rights to The Successor for an unusually high advance. The rights have been sold to Hollywood.


And another novel with a WWII link - ARMIN by Gustaaf Peek.

In Nazi Germany, during the final year of World War II, a young SS-man named Armin Immendorff is ordered to work as an obstetrician in a hospital of Lebensborn. This secret project’s purpose was to increase the German birth rate and to help create a racially pure Arian race. When Armin arrives at the hospital he learns that the project has degenerated into clandestine medical experiments. He befriends a strong-willed nurse and together they change the rules. Their Lebensborn becomes a haven for desperate women and unwanted babies. Armin falls in love with a young pregnant woman who dies after giving birth. He adopts her new-born son and names the boy after himself.

This is the start of the story of the son who will undertake a lifelong journey for a family of his own. The secret of his origins, his flight to the Netherlands – with the nurse who will become his mother – and his wish to become a father himself, drive the second Armin’s search. He embarks on a brilliant career in genetics. The war may be over and lost, but some of its distorted dreams have survived – twentieth-century obsessions leading to the dark waters of eugenics and cloning. Armin is a man on the brink.

Gustaaf Peek (1975) was educated at the University of Leyden where he received his Master’s Degree in American Literature. Numerous Dutch periodicals have published his poems and short stories. Armin is his first novel.

The book is already garnering significant praise from its Dutch edition:

'Remarkable and bold first novel. Peek forces the reader to think about provocative issues'. - Friesch Dagblad.

'Gustaaf Peek is not short on talent. The passages which take place in Nazi Germany are quite terrific.' - Trouw

'A small masterpiece.' - HP/De Tijd

'We must praise him for his originality and the courage to leave behind his own biography, unlike so many other first-time novelists'. - NRC Handelsblad

'It’s all got to do with his style which easily transcends the usual standards in Dutch literature. Peek is a great talent and we will hear much more of him in the future.' - Leeuwarder Courant

'Armin is a powerfully written first novel with original and modern themes'. - Algemeen Dagblad.

The next book is a memoir and moves forward to contemporary issues and a modern setting:

Stine Jensen's: Turkish Butterflies


In the spring of 2002, Stine Jensen (1972) goes on a holiday to Ürgüp, Cappadocia. She has booked a room in hotel The Old Greek House, but she arrives to a surprise: hundreds of people are swarming in front of the hotel. The hotel owner gently informs her that these people are waiting for their favourite soap-opera heroes to appear. The Old Greek House provides the location for the wildly popular television soap series, Asmalı Konak. While waiting on the set, Stine’s own soap opera begins… a red rose is passed through a circle of people and is presented to her. ‘It is from that man over there,’ Yıldız Eylem, a famous actress tells her. So the lovestory begins. Although the rosegiver barely speaks a word of English and her Turkish is limited to ordering a cup of coffee, Stine falls head over heels in love with Ozan, The hairdresser for the stars. What starts off as an innocent holiday romance, turns into a long-lasting affair.

For three years, Jensen divides her time between Amsterdam and Istanbul. She follows a course in Turkish for beginners, talks to young Turks and Europeans living in Istanbul about their ideas on love and sex, and studies eastern and western stereotypes of love in Turkish television soaps, pop music and films. She continues her visits to Ozan on the Turkish soapsets, following Asmalı Konak, with another top Turkish hit Bir Istanbul Masalı. She becomes friends with three young Turkish women who are dreaming of a European man and meets the sad Mert who has to choose between his mother and his Dutch lover Suzanne, the charming Frenchman Patrick, who has to slip past the doorkeeper every night to be with his beloved Yildiz, and Moon, who has 31 Turkish men in her dating system, but can’t find Mr. Right.

Turkish Butterflies is a personal investigation into the choices of female and male thirty-somethings, emigrating Europeans who have lost their hearts to Turkey, Turks who are dreaming of a life in Europe and the difficulties and pleasures of intercultural love.

There are several other books and authors from the Sebes & van Gelderen list that Raft will be handling and I will update their details onto the BLOG in the coming days. I am really excited to be taking on these books as I think that we often miss out on interesting European writers for no go reason at all! Hopefully I can make some contribution to changing that.For more information about Sebes & van Gelderen click HERE