Read our sample translation of The Example of Their Love

About the book

‘As I remember, you were the only one who wasn’t surprised when my parents  did it together. They did almost everything together, including dying. They’ve been dead and buried some twenty years now, and I’ve started wondering what to do with all the old papers my father and mother left behind.’

They wrote to each other between 1 January 1948 and 31 December 1950. That was how their love began. He wrote from a ship in the Pacific Ocean, and she from a bombed-out Rotterdam, from the desk of an idealistic female student at the school for social work.

Dirk van Weelden based his book, The Example of Their Love, on those letters. It’s a universal tale that reaffirms how we are shaped by circumstances, our parents, their character and ideas. And how, generation after generation, these things are passed on. At the same time, this is a passionate plea for reading and writing as a source of strength and as a fine instrument for remaining intimately present, even from a distance.