Womens Prize For Fiction Winner

The Safekeep

by Yael van der Wouden

Summary

In the Dutch countryside of 1961 a rigid, solitary woman is forced to share her late mother's house with her brother's unsettling girlfriend, and desire ignites. As the summer unfolds, the novel uncovers what the house was and whose family truly owned it before the war. Van der Wouden binds a charged erotic awakening to the unspoken legacy of the Holocaust in the Netherlands.

Historical Context & Significance

Yael van der Wouden's debut made her the first Dutch author to win the prize.