Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost

Description

“I am the nameless crew member who died on January 27, 1597.” So reports the Dutch narrator of Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost from his icy grave on Novaya Zemlya, an Arctic archipelago separating what are known today as the Barents and Kara Seas in Russia. But when his expedition set out to find a Northeast Passage from Europe to China, the landmasses blocking such a route were unknown. As the expedition fails, the narrator becomes a sentient part of the landscape, privy to centuries of change.

While he meditates on the realities of human hubris that led to his early demise, unpacks his childhood in and around Amsterdam, and comments on the dramatic technological and climatic changes he endures, history and fiction clash with tectonic force. Featuring an eclectic cast of characters, from real-life figures like cartographer Petrus Plancius to Arctic foxes and transcendent shamans, and peppered with references to countless historical events—ranging from the Reformation to Stalin’s labor camps and atomic weapons testing—this boldly imaginative, profoundly beautiful novel argues that the unchanging, flawed characteristics of human behavior are why the natural world has changed in so many ways.

Hailed as the “Zen master of Dutch literature,” Donald Niedekker was awarded the 2021 Brussels Free University’s Luc Bucquoye Prize, given for work that stands out for its unconventional and idiosyncratic nature. In 2023, Waarachtige Beschrijvingen Uit de Permafrost (Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost), won the prestigious Bordewijk Prize. The jury praised it as “a scintillating ode to language and history, which at the same time astutely sheds light on our own times. A novel to freeze yourself to.”

Jonathan Reeder, a New York native and longtime Amsterdam resident, has enjoyed a dual career as a literary translator and performing musician. After many years as an orchestral bassoonist, he now translates contemporary Dutch and Flemish fiction and nonfiction, as well as opera libretti and essays on classical music. Recent translations include Crackling Skulls by Roger Van de Velde, The Sound of Utopia by Michel Krielaars, and Mathijs Deen’s Down Old Roads and The Boundless River.