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  • Published: 15 July 2002
  • ISBN: 9781860468827
  • Imprint: Harvill Press
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 96
  • RRP: $29.99

The Figure In The Distance




A beautiful study of the interplay between past and present.
"A wonderful novel" CEES NOOTEBOOM

The narrator of the novel is a lifelong traveller - Cambridge, Budapest, New York, Tel Aviv, The Hague and Zurich are all cities he has lived in. But wherever he stays, the impressions he gets and the people he sees remind him of figures from long ago: a lost friend, a former lover, and above all, his father. He has a past, but the present eludes him, and he moves about the world as if he is a ghost, his intrusive memories ensuring that he is never completely alone and yet never completely happy.
The writing is spare and elegant and this enchanting novel will not be easily forgotten.

  • Published: 15 July 2002
  • ISBN: 9781860468827
  • Imprint: Harvill Press
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 96
  • RRP: $29.99

About the author

Otto De Kat

OTTO DE KAT was born in 1946, and studied theology and Dutch literature at Leiden University. Since 1986 he has been the publisher of Uitgeverij Balans in Amsterdam. He has also published a volume of poetry and worked as a literary critic. The Figure in the Distance is his first novel.