Skillful, told with tantalizing hints of what is to come, and undeniably a book that really is about something. De overgave is an entertaining book, that is for sure. - Herman Jacobs, Knack

FROM THE NETHERLANDS:
Westerns make you think of cowboys and Indians, buffaloes and horses, prairies and forts. … This is not the world that appears in De overgave, the spectacular, ambitious novel by Arthur Japin. … Along the way, you get a more and more detailed picture of Granny's personal history and become more and more impressed by Japin's precision. As if deliberately, it seems he has traded the wide angle of the film Western (open prairie, immense herds) for the close-up. When Granny lies speared to the ground, she concentrates on an ant who crawls through the ever-growing pool of blood beside her. It is an image that is as deadly accurate as it is unforgettable. … By giving voice to a woman who in earlier versions of this history went unmentioned, Japin expands on his own earlier novels, but also on a pacifistic, feminist classic such as Kassandra by Christa Wolf. In De overgave Japin undermines the heroic story of the classic Western. Japin brings you much closer to the Wild West than John Wayne. - Jann Ruyters, Trouw

A clever novel … Based on a real, unbelievable life, which Japin has watered down in order not to make it unbelievable. The meeting of two people who have lost everything, whose peoples hate one another, immediately puts the book on edge. This opposition, and the perspective of hindsight, are a time-tested literary model which Japin masters with verve. From this old, hard 'lady,' driven by hope and revenge, he has made a beautiful, tough, and powerful character. The book is a page turner, and through the many 'flash-forwards' it reads even more quickly. - Maarten Moll, Het Parool

De overgave is more than a novel with a nice round ending. It is a book about sadness, and especially how people deal with it, about how difficult it is to forgive. … "You only cry when nothing's ever happened to you." De overgave sparkles with this kind of beautiful one-liners. They are imbedded in a story that is sometimes very exciting and more often moving. Japin passes his course in "the literary Western" with flying colors. - Pieter Steinz, NRC Handelsblad

De overgave is an ambitious, wide-ranging, and cleverly composed novel, written in Japin's always elegant style, complimented with the raw and cynical tone of Granny. Japin is born for the genre of the historical novel. He knows how to capture the circumstances, the attitudes, and the expressions of every time and place in history (in this case 19 th century America), and knows how to illustrate them with insights that are universal and timeless. - Susan Smit, Goedemorgen Nederland

You can compare Arthur Japin's novels to ashheaps that miraculously catch fire. To pull that off you have to have the life-giving breath of the born storyteller. Japin has this quality, as we see once again in his new novel De overgave. … That Granny Parker once existed is a fact, but it is not known what happened to her after 1840. So it is all the more impressive how she comes to life here. Japin gives her a face and a character by lending her the voice of a tough, stubborn old lady. A woman who doesn't need a man and who isn't even afraid of the devil. A woman who struggles to free herself from her past and to make peace with something that she has always avoided out of fear of losing herself. The official history knows almost nothing about Granny Parker, but thanks to Arthur Japin I can see her standing in front of me. - Jaap Goedegebuure, GPD bladen

Forty years later the elderly Granny receives a visit from Quanah, the leader of the Comanche people she so hates. He is on his way to give himself up to the authorities and to take his defeated people once and for all onto the reservation. With this gesture, after almost 400 years, the defeat of the original inhabitants of America is complete.

Before Quanah can take the step he has one request: he asks Granny to tell him about her life, especially about one of her stolen grandchildren: Cynthia Ann, her favorite. Granny had eventually got Cynthia Ann back, but by then she had become entirely Indianized. Granny wants to meet the young man. Her Cynthia Ann was, after all, Quanah's mother.

While Granny dredges up her unbelievable story in her own bitter, sarcastic voice, it becomes clear how tightly connected her fate is with her Indian great-grandson's. Both have been marked by the war between their peoples, and by their personal struggle against one another. Both have lost everything in the war, along with everything and everyone they loved. They have nothing more in life but one another.

Can they muster enough understanding to see what the other has gone through? Can they stand by one another in their last moments of life and independence? Can they let the love that ought to bind them bring them together? And--perhaps most importantly--can they understand, before it's too late, that forgiveness is not something one does for someone else, but for one's own self?