Onno Blom in gesprek met Lieke Marsman en Maarten Asscher

On another planet they can save me

Living with death changed Lieke Marsman's worldview: she became interested in God and UFOs, in quantum mechanics and Christian thinkers. This book is a philosophical trip into the depths of the human mind, interspersed with diary fragments describing how death is hot on her heels. Ultimately, the idea is that dying with hope, however far-fetched and unrealistic, is still better than hopeless resignation.

Lieke Marsman (1990) made her debut at the age of twenty with the poetry collection Wat ik zelf graag voorhoud (What I like to keep to myself), for which she immediately won several prizes. In 2014, De eerste letter (The first letter) was published, followed in 2017 by the novel Het tepositie van een mens (The opposite of a person). In 2018, De volgende scan duur vijf minuten (The next scan lasts five minutes), poems and an essay about her cancer diagnosis, was published, followed by In mijn mand (In my basket) in 2021. Marsman was Poet Laureate in 2021 and 2022. She studied philosophy in Amsterdam.

Oscar Wilde's crucifix

As a student at Oxford, Oscar Wilde courted Florence Balcombe from Dublin. On Christmas Day 1876, he gave her, his first great love, a gold crucifix. Two years later, Florence surprised Oscar by suddenly marrying another young Dublin writer, Bram Stoker, the future author of Dracula. But what happened to that crucifix?

Maarten Asscher uses this little riddle as a starting point for an entertaining biographical story, in which he examines Wilde's development as a young artist. From an early trip to Greece to his illustrious tour of America, including meetings with Walt Whitman and Arthur Conan Doyle. Asscher uses the entire arsenal of Wilde literature and supplements the historical facts with his imagination in fictional chapters, plus a possible solution to the mystery of the crucifix, provided by none other than Sherlock Holmes. The result is an original interpretation of a piece of Victorian literary history and an ode to the imagination.

Maarten Asscher (1957) is the author of collections of short stories, essays, columns, poetry and non-fiction. His first novel, Het uur en de dag (2005), was reprinted five times within a year. Before devoting himself to writing full-time, Maarten Asscher was a publisher (Meulenhoff), director of Arts at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and an independent literary and academic bookseller (Athenaeum Boekhandel). In 2015, he received his PhD from Leiden University for his research into captivity as a literary experience (Het uur der waarheid). In 2019, he received the five-yearly JH Donner Prize for his special contributions to the Dutch book trade. In 2022, his third novel, De schaduw van een vriend (The Shadow of a Friend), a cinematic novel about an old boys network that comes under pressure, will be published. In 2025, Oscar Wilde's crucifix will be published, in both a Dutch and an English version.