“ I am the nameless crew member who died on January 27, 1597.” So reports the Dutch narrator of Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost from his icy grave on Novaya Zemyla, an the Arctic archipelago separating what are known today as the Barents and Kara Seas in Russia. But when this expedition set out to find a Northeast Passage from Europe to China, the landmasses blocking such a route were unknown. While the expedition fails, the narrator becomes a sentient part of the landscape, privy to centuries of change.
While he meditates on the realities of human hubris that led to his early demise, unpacks his childhood in and around Amsterdam, and comments on the dramatic technological and climactic changes he endures, history and fiction clash with tectonic force. Featuring an eclectic cast of characters, from real-life figures like cartographer Petrus Plancius to Arctic foxes and transcendent shaman, and peppered with references to countless historical events— ranging from the Reformation to Stalin’s labor camps and atomic weapons testing— this boldly imaginative, profoundly beautiful novel argues that the unchanging characteristics of human behavior are why the natural world has changed in so many ways.
Winner of the F. Bordewijk-prijs 2022
“This book does not meander placidly within the conventional shores of the novel. It washes generously over it and explores other terrain. It stirs the imagination and the desire for riddles, secrets and unknown horizons.” – De Tijd
“For a long time, this novel lay hidden under the literary permafrost of our editorial office, until something caused a crack in the ice and the realisation dawned upon us that we had forgotten what should not have been forgotten: one of the literary highlights of the year.” – de Volkskrant
"“Permafrost” is a pure delight on the page, packed full of sly jokes and inventive surprises.” – The Washington Post