Arnon Grunberg
Netherlands
"Grunberg´s cool, unflinching gaze is
both brutal and disconcerting, but raises genuine questions about the
boundaries between cynicism and truth."
Born in 1971 in Amsterdam, Arnon Grunberg went from a seventeen year-old high school dropout to the critically acclaimed author of Blue Mondays in lightening time. It soon became a bestseller, and Grunberg was awarded the Anton Wachter Prize for the best debut novel.
In 2000, his Phantom Pain received the AKO Prize, the Dutch equivalent of the Man Booker Prize. Then The History of My Baldness, published under the pseudonym Marek van der Jagt, caused
a scandal by 'illegally' claiming the Anton Wachter Prize a second time.
"I´ve never been an idealist. All attempts to make the world better have had the opposite effect."
Grunberg´s works include Silent Extras, The Asylum Seeker, and The Jewish Messiah, which is forthcoming.
