Peter Buwalda / Peter Buwalda – Bonita Avenue

Peter Buwalda – Bonita Avenue

Peter Buwalda – Bonita Avenue

Rights sold

  • Rowohlt (Germany)
  • Actes Sud (France)
  • Mondadori (Italy)
  • Pushkin (World English)
  • Hogarth (USA)
  • Odeon (Czech Republic)
  • Salamandra (Spain)
  • Scolar (Hungary)
  • Owl (Taiwan)
  • Forlagid (Iceland)
  • Colibri (Bulgaria)
  • Alfaguara (Brasil)
  • WAB (Poland)
  • ArtPeople/People’s Press (Denmark)
  • Colibri (Bulgaria)
  • Alexandria (Greece)
  • Hena Com (Croatia)

 

Read a sample translation of Bonita Avenue

 

About the book

Siem Sigerius is a beloved, brilliant professor of mathematics with a promising future in politics. His family—including a loving wife, two gorgeous, intelligent stepdaughters and a successful future son-in-law—and carefully appointed home in the bucolic countryside complete the portrait of a comfortable, morally upright household. But there are elements of Siem’s past that threaten to upend the peace and stability that he has achieved, and when he stumbles upon a deception that’s painfully close to home, things begin to fall apart. A cataclysmic explosion in a fireworks factory, the advent of internet pornography, and the reappearances of a discarded, dangerous son all play a terrible role in the spectacular fragmentation of the Sigerius clan.

A riveting portrait of a family in crisis and the ways that even the smallest twists of fate can forever change our lives, Bonita Avenue is an incendiary, unpredictable debut of relationships torn asunder by lies, and minds destroyed by madness.

Dazzling...Critics hailed Buwalda as 'The Dutch answer to Jonathan Franzen', but his brilliance is entirely unique. — The Times (UK)

Robust [and] dark... In the manner of Iris Murdoch at her most manic...The plot orchestration and lively character renderings of Bonita Avenue are dazzling. — New York Times Book Review

Buwalda's magnificent first novel offers proof of Tolstoy's dictum that 'every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Three uniquely unreliable voices narrate this darkly humorous familial drama...Their interweaving narratives, which hop between the Netherlands, Shanghai, Belgium, and California, chart the years between the rise and fall of their outwardly successful but privately dysfunctional family. — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Author

Peter Buwalda (b. 1971) is a Dutch novelist, formerly a journalist, editor, and founder of the literary music magazine Wah-Wah and columnist. Bonita Avenue is his debut novel. First published in 2010 to critical acclaim, it was short-listed for twelve literary prizes and spent two years on bestseller lists. Bonita Avenue has since been translated into many languages.

© Mikel Buwalda