Rivers

A critically acclaimed, award-winning collection drawing sparkling prose from the inspiration of three rivers passing through different times and places.

On the storm-swollen Aisne in northeastern France, an alcoholic actor combats both his demons and nature’s tempests. Along the Main and Rhine in Germany, a kindhearted logger has but one wish: to travel with the lumber from his small Franconian hometown to the end of the river in the Netherlands, where it feeds into the majestic North Sea. In a bucolic vale in the French region of Brittany, two families, divided by religion and an unnamed stream, sustain a centuries-old feud, their resolve no match for the constantly shifting flow of water.

These three stories span countries and eras, but they are all connected by, and reliant on, the unpredictable power and languid beauty of rivers that give life as quickly as they take it away.

Martin Michael Driessen is a Dutch opera and theater director, translator, and writer. He made his debut in 1999 with the novel Gars, followed by Vader van God (Father of God, 2012) and Een ware held (A True Hero, 2013), both of which were broadly reviewed and nominated for literary prizes. In 2015 his novel Lizzie, written with the highly acclaimed and prize-nominated poet Liesbeth Lagemaat, was published under the pseudonym Eva Wanjek. Rivieren (Rivers) was awarded the prestigious ECI Literature Prize (formerly the AKO) in 2016. His latest novel, De pelikaan (The Pelican), was published in 2017. His work has been translated into English, Italian, German, and Hungarian.