Edition Libroskop
Volume IVMartijn
van Praagh The Blue Labyrinth
Seven Stories
143 pages, world rights
Places of action:
Hamburg, St. Petersburg, southern Sweden, the Netherlands
Two people in love, which during their encounter all of St. Petersburg
seems to have deserted, a jazz fan can awaken Miles Davis to life
with the help of a CD player, playing music of him and that mysterious death
of a young man in the inner courtyard of a Hamburg department store - bizarre
ideas, that show Martijn van Praagh making his debut on the literary scene
of Germany, whose versatility represents a mastery of all skills.
In a cosmopolitan and political matter he unites Russia, Sweden, the
Netherlands and Germany; stylistically and masterly he achieves the tight
rope walk between love stories, crime chronicles and criminal detection.
The seven thrilling stories distinguish themselves above all through their
adaptable and changeable language: the lyrical sensitive art language
belongs to van Praagh's repertoire as well as the contemporary everyday
prose. Supporting his creative language, he applies purposively, yet with
moderation, the stylistic form of irony.
»In the whole volume,
bizarre pictures stand out; there are wonderful
phrases and human hopelessness are unmasked as plots. Van Praagh proves
himself as a young, fresh and original author.«
Saskia Schulte,
literaturkritik.de
The
engineer and author Martijn van Praagh (b. 1972 near Utrecht, the Netherlands)
studied at the Technical University Hamburg-Harburg. He works and lives
as a scholar of the Robert-Bosch-Foundation in Lund (Sweden).