Disclosure : This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

Amsterdam Stories

J. H. F. Gronloh was a successful Dutch businessman, executive of the Holland-Bombay Trading Company and father of four, with a secret life: under the pseudonym Nescio (Latin for “I don`t know”), he wrote a series of short stories that went unrecognized at the time but that are now widely considered the best prose ever written in Dutch. Nescio`s stories look back on the enthusiasms of youth with an achingly beautiful melancholy comparable to the work of Alain-Fournier and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He writes of young dreams from the perspective of adult resignation, but reinhabits youthful ambition and adventure so fully that the later perspective is the one thrown into doubt-and with language as fresh as when it was written a century ago. His last long story, written and set during World War II, is a remarkable evocation of the Netherlands in wartime and a hymn to our capacity to take refuge in memory and imagination. This is great literature-capturing the Dutch landscape and scenes of Amsterdam with a remarkable poetry, and expressing the spirit of the country of businessmen and van Gogh, merchants and visionaries.

Related Products:

Japanese Stories for Language Learners: Bilingual Stories in Japanese and English Why the Dutch are Different: A Journey into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands Cycling in Amsterdam and the Netherlands: The Very Best Routes in the Cyclist`s Paradise A Galaxy of Her Own: Amazing Stories of Women in Space Short Stories in Chinese and English – Parallel Text Rick Steves Amsterdam & the Netherlands Roald Dahl Collected Stories Island Stories: Britain and Its History in the Age of Brexit And the Earth Will Sit on the Moon: Essential Stories A Reader of Modern Arabic Short Stories Beloved Land: Stories, Struggles, and Secrets from Timor-Leste Flying Home and Other Stories The Great War: An Anthology of Stories Inspired by Objects from the First World War Best Women`s Travel Writing: True Stories from Around the World: v. 9 Palestine +100: Stories from a Century after the Catastrophe The Gambler and Other Stories Fodor`s Amsterdam The Cossacks and Other Stories: Stories of Sevastopol, the Cossacks, Hadji Murat Beginner`s Dutch with Online Audio A Vision of the World: Selected Short Stories The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man: Essential Stories The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories The Savage Shore: Extraordinary Stories of Survival and Tragedy from the Early Voyages of Discovery Town and Country: New Irish Short Stories The Great War: Stories Inspired by Objects from the First World War The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations A Stage Full of Shakespeare Stories Fragile Lives: A Heart Surgeon`s Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories The Dat`s Love and Other Stories The Garden Party and Other Stories Prague Stories Lunatics, Lovers and Poets: Twelve Stories After Cervantes and Shakespeare Ghostly Stories: Faber Stories Cold Sea Stories Intruders: Faber Stories That Glimpse of Truth: The 100 Finest Short Stories Ever Written The Rhine: Following Europe`s Greatest River from Amsterdam to the Alps Born A Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood