Untitled - Uitgeverij Cossee

Cyrille Offermans – Why I Have to Lie to MyDemented MotherMy mother thought we were at war. Not as a metaphor but in the truest sense of the word.She was captured and was being guarded by ‘the enemy’. How I had reached her throughenemy lines without as much as a scratch was a total mystery to her.Cyrille Offermans writes about his mothers adventures in dementia. Up close and with suchprecision that it suggests deep love. How it started, with forgetfulness and distrust, how hardit was to react to this, that it was inevitable to have her hospitalized and how her inner worlddisintegrated. The essayist Offermans, who helped taking care for his mother for years , triesto interpret her seemingly meaningless thoughts and words with meaning and humanity.Rights sold to:Germany, Kunstmann‘This is not the feel good-essay for those affected but it’s a critical view on the mysteriousprocess in which all insights and connections are erased.’ – Vrij Nederland‘Offermans essay is the best of the stack, a small gem, personal and descending. Comparedto everything else it is a very polished book. Which is not just a compliment for thephrasing but also for what it describes.’ – NRC HandelsbladAuthor: Cyrille OffermansAuthor: Cyrille OffermansTitle: Why I Have to Lie to My Demented Mother (non-fiction) Title: Death of a Teacher (fiction)Original title: Waarom ik moet liegen tegen mijn demente moeder Original title: Dood van een leraarPublished: 2009 Published: 2011Size: 264 pages / 75.000 wordsSize: 320 pages / 90.000 wordsCyrille Offermans – Death of a TeacherFreek Moerdijk is a graduated philosopher. Searching for fitting work he ends up at a culturalradio program and a literary publishing house. But at age twenty-eight he decides to becomea teacher. As such he encounters disconcerting experiences, one after the other.In Death of a Teacher, Cyrille Offermans paints a perceptive and disturbing picture of thetensions of academic life. The student in doubt, the philosopher searching for a job and thecommitted teacher all make it defiant and exhausting to be a scholar at the start of thetwenty-first century. The author doesn’t agree with the smug classroom veterans whocomplain about the good for nothing youth on to whom a good book is wasted.Freek Moerdijk sees the school as a closed organization. The young teacher is astounded bythe lack of vision and pedagogical knowledge of the school staff ignoring the real problems.Students and teacher with stress to which some are unable to cope with.The school staff asks Moerdijk to speak at the funeral of a colleague he hardly knew. This gives him three options: agree anddeliver an impersonal and standard speech, gracefully decline with a good lie or seize the opportunity to tell the truth.'His language is almost the same as in his essays: both smooth and probing journalistic. But this novel is most certain a criticalfortress against the sign of the times. And that is most certainly striking' – De Morgen‘A Philosophy lesson disguised as a formation novel' – Filosofie Magazine'Offermans joins the tradition of Theo Thijssen, F. Bordewijk, Simon Vestdijk, Joost Zwagerman and Jan Siebelink' - Het Parool