In The New York Times is op 4 augustus een lovende recensie gepubliceerd over Stefan Hertmans’ Oorlog en Terpentijn, vertaald door David McKay:
‘War and Turpentine is billed as a novel, but that’s hardly the word for it. It’s an uncanny work of historical reconstruction.’ The New York Times
Lees hier de volledige recensie uit The New York Times.
Ook in andere internationale media is de Engelstalige editie van Hertmans’ roman lovend ontvangen:
‘The novel is wonderful, full of astonishingly vivid moments of powerful imagery. (…) There are moving moments of mysterious beauty. (…) Hertmans brilliantly captures the intractable reality of a complex man. (…) I thought I’d had enough of books about the First World War: I couldn’t have been more wrong.’ Sunday Times
‘A book that seems to be aching to be called “Sebaldian” and earns the epithet glowlingly. War and Turpentine has all the markings of a future classic.’ The Guardian
‘Hertmans demonstrates a painter’s eye for the smallest detail, gracefully melding art criticism and philosophy. Hertmans’s prose, with a deft translation from McKay, works with the same full palette as Urbain Martien’s paintings: vivid, passionate—and in the end, life-affirming.’ Kirkus Reviews
‘A rich fictionalised memoir. (…) Death, destruction, obligation, duty… Urbain faces them all and yet he still finds joys in life.’ Times