Jan van Mersbergen

(Gorinchem, NL, 1971) debuted in 2001 with De grasbijter (The Grass Biter), a novel about a thirtysomething who leads a lonely life on his parents' farm until a girl turns up in his life. His seventh novel De laatste ontsnapping (The Last Escape) was published in 2014, about the meaning of family ties when you've never seen one another. In the intervening novels, Van Mersbergen covers a variety of topics, from friends who like tinkering with cars to a boxer on the lam who ends up in Pamplona during the annual running of the bulls. His work has been translated into German, English, Spanish, Catalan, French, Turkish, and other languages. Van Mersbergen studied Culture and Policy and Cultural Sociology in Amsterdam and has worked as a bricklayer, test-animal caretaker, postman, and in the theatre as a producer, production manager, stage designer, fundraiser, and administrator. Since 2010 he has been an editor with the literary magazine De Revisor. That same year, his website was named best literary weblog in the Netherlands by the monthly magazine HP/De Tijd. In 2016 he received the F. Bordewijk Prize for De laatste ontsnapping. His latest novel De Ruiter was published in 2017.