UITGELEZEN APRIL

‘A book like an uppercut.' That's what the buzz about debutant Rita Bullwinkel's ‘Headshot’ says. Eight underage girls descend on Reno, Nevada to compete in the national championship boxing at Bobs Boxing Palace. All of them need the boxing, all of them take hits. One of them will go home with the title of winner. Punch after punch after punch, the reader is left mesmerised watching the contestants fight, and glimpses of their futures in the at times merciless US.

It should come as no surprise that ‘Headshot’ was one of Obama's favourite books of 2024. 

A second debutant who manages to put physicality on paper in her own unique way is Kim de l'Horizon. Them won the Deutscher Buchpreis with ‘Blood Book’. ‘Blood Book’ is about The Child who speaks in sentences of no more than seven words so as not to incur the wrath of More, the mother, and about the adult who grows out of The Child. The adult with an insatiable hunger for the bodies of others and a kinship with the mysterious, feminine line of the family. Starting with the life of their Gross Lake, the main character tries to untangle their own roots. 

The last book is also about people's roots, about youth, and about how some events continue to hint at the future. Those familiar with the work of star Italian author Sandro Veronesi know that these are recurring ingredients in his acclaimed oeuvre. In 'Black September', Veronesi follows 12-year-old Gigio Bellandi through tragedy and scorching infatuation into adulthood.