GAME tells the story of Norbert Vijgh’s as he grows up in a protestant village on the Veluwe. We follow him from his ninth to his nineteenth year. Each of the chapters involves a game. From playing cowboys and indians in the forest to mischief on the building site. But for Norbert these are serious games that teach him about the world. The first story hits you like a sledgehammer. It is a very simple tale about a boy who plays indians in a wood near a village on the Veluwe, a meeting with an African who is following a course locally; the establishment of a kind of friendship, after which at an unfortunate moment the African departs. GAME is written in a sensual, playful style that changes with each chapter. Through both the style and the story Enter expertly evokes the emotions and feelings of youth.

‘This whole book is for me a paradise of sensual sensations. SPEL is beautiful, tender, impressive’ Jan Siebelink

‘Enter is an extraordinarily good writer.’ Het Parool

‘The story is beautiful written with a great sensibility for the physical surroundings. Enter writes magnificent rhythmic sentences.’ NRC

‘Both for his first novel and his second (Winter Hands 1999 and Light Years 2004) Enter was nominated for the Libris Prize. Without any doubt "Game" will earn him a place on the 2008 shortlist. It deserves this prize twice over.’ Nord Hollands Dagblad

Uitgeverij Van Oorschot NL;

Berlin Verlag Germany

Material: Dutch edition (269pp), German edition.

NOMINATED FOR THE LIBRIS PRIZE AND THE GERARD WALSCHAP PRIZE

'In "Lightyears" Stephan Enter plays continually on two time levels. On one side there is the story of the present, the protagonist who faces the initiation ritual of his doctoral presentation and inadvertently is sucked into a series of happenings in which the ghosts of his past keep playing a central role. On the other side the researcher - who through his telescope studies events which took place in the universe a long time ago - relives his own past in the smallest details. The almost sensuous precision of the cherished memories show the cracks in that picture. "Lightyears" looks for a lost love, but at the same time asks how the relationship between two people fell apart and if the intensity of the love was perhaps to blame. Stephan Enter elaborates that classic theme subtly, through a play of motives and memories which make his novel into an enigmatic puzzle of elements. He avoids all superficial sentiment. The sentences are strung together associatively, in a slow rhythm, through his precise use of language, his continuous nuances and repetitions. This makes Lightyears a particularly successful and layered novel which compels to rereading, rethinking and retaining.' Libris Prize Jury report

Uitgeverij Van Oorschot NL

Material: Dutch edition (320pp)