Hard Skin
Publisher: Publishing House Orlando
Shortlisted for the Anton Wachter Debut Prize 2024 for best debut in the past two years
Dutch Sarlag grew up in Mongolia and returns to Utrecht as a student. Looking for a part-time job, she applies at a large supermarket. There, she is told she can work in the refrigerated freezer department: she is used to the cold anyway. During the long days at work, she models half-melted frozen foods into meat figurines and keeps herself calm by listing her favourite facts. It is clear that Sarlag carries a great sadness with her but she is especially talented at getting it out of the way.
Hard Skin is Rinske Bouwman’s tragicomic debut novel about how grief can nestle irreversibly in your body.
‘Bouwman has skillfully constructed her original narrative. […] As the novel is written in the first-person, you slip smoothly into Sarlag’s fantasies. ••••’ – NRC Handelsblad
‘A bold, inventive novel, though the writer’s restraint almost obfuscates just how daring it is.’ – de Volkskrant
‘It’s impressive how Bouwman builds the kind of suspense that makes you want to keep reading, both through the way she breadcrumbs information and through her vivid, visceral prose.’ – Trouw
‘A wildly original debut.’ – VPRO Gids
