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Gijs IJlander – No Sea But WaterThe young secretary of Traffic and Waterways Annet de Goede is brutally honest in hercontact with her colleagues in parliament. She is convinced that the new policy that sheadvocates is the right way to go. In this she underestimates the resistance she evokes with herplans to give back land to the sea.Fear and confusion are the outcome of her plans with the people who live in the land that issupposed to be flooded and repossessed by the sea. People like Bennie, who catches rats for aliving, and his drinking father. Both of which can do well without politics at all, but not withoutthe land that they live in. While Annets popularity soars with the next election coming soon,her family in the north of the Netherlands is being pressure by ruthless protesters.No Sea But Water tells very lively about a pressing conflict that touches upon the self image ofthe Netherlands and leaves no one untouched. At the same time it is a beautiful ode to theunique Dutch landscape with its high skies and straight lines.‘No Sea But Water is a very Dutch novel about a very Dutch and actual theme.’ – Boekenkrant.com‘It is a sharp novel with a clear view on modern politics and the wish to alter it. With a leading role for the landscape. I haveread it with much pleasure.’ – Blokker Book StoreAuthor: Gijs IJlanderAuthor: Gijs IJlanderTitle: No Sea But Water (fiction)Title: Wild Song (fiction)Original title: Geen zee maar waterOriginal title: WildzangPublished: 2008 Published: 2010Size: 224 pages / 85.000 wordsSize: 272 pages / 71.000 wordsGijs IJlander – Wild Song‘He walked to the gate, closed for the first time in his life. He remembered it as always openand welcoming. Now the two sides, WILD and SONG, had been locked into a single iron word.’It is a chilly evening in March. A man who has made his fortune selling real estate in theAlgarve arrives at Schiphol airport – he is returning to his native village to arrange the sale ofWild Song, the farm that is his ancestral home. Many things have changed in the Netherlands:the landscape of his youth has turned into suburbia, the wild song of birds has been replacedby the drone of lawnmowers and electric garden equipment. Wild Song, once a remote place,is now surrounded by an up market housing development.His confused father, recently installed in a home for the elderly, is full of reproach and anger.All his certainties have been wiped away; everything he lived for has crumbled to dust. Theson has to face a similar disillusionment when he realizes that his current financial successhas been achieved by fraud and the betrayal of his ideals of freedom and authenticity. Thevalues of the past, everything that mattered to both father and son, seem to be irretrievably lost.However, there is business at hand: the farm must be taken care of. Part of the building is occupied by a family of squatters, ayoung mother with her two unruly sons who chase the sheep and use the farmyard as a playground. The future of Wild Song isuncertain. The death of the old father gives everything a new perspective. The journey back to Portugal has to be delayed.‘The skillfully developed plot maintains its tension until the very end’ – De Leeswolf‘His sober style of writing fits its country theme beautifully’ – GPD