The Song of Stork and Dromedary
Translated by David McKay
Overview
Inspired by the life and work of Emily Brontë, this masterful, multi-award-winning book — acclaimed as the best Dutch novel published this century — pulls readers into a narrative that redefines time itself.
In the early 1800s, in Yorkshire, Eliza May Drayden and her sisters live far from the public eye, devoted to their shared love of reading and writing books. When, after dozens of rejections, Eliza May’s only novel, Haeger Mass, is finally published, it’s labelled as ‘ghastly’ and ‘immoral’. Over time, however, it is embraced by generations of readers as a masterpiece, and tales about its mysterious, reclusive author take on a life of their own.
In eleven extraordinary chapters, the story of Eliza May — both before and after her death — unfolds: through the tales of people who met her; her sister’s letters; her biographers’ words; the pages of a mysterious notebook; and the lives that become intertwined with hers, even centuries later.
In The Song of Stork and Dromedary, Anjet Daanje has crafted an absorbing literary mystery and an unforgettable meditation on love, life, loss, and the inexplicable nature of time. As the Brontës themselves did, Daanje shows us that storytelling is our only way to transcend death.
Details
- Format
- Size
- Extent
- ISBN
- RRP
- Pub date
- Rights held
- Other rights
- Paperback
- 234mm x 153mm
- 720 pages
- 9781761380938
- AUD$39.99
- 29 September 2026
- World English (ex. NA)
- Uitgeverij Passage
Categories
Awards
- Winner of the 2023 Libris Literature Prize
- Winner of the 2022 Boekenbon Literature Prize
- Shortlisted for the 2026 The Cercador Prize
Praise
‘This is a book for the ages, a feat of translation and imagination that I lost myself in for many hours (and at 720 pages, there is no exaggeration there) and longed to return to whenever I was doing anything but reading it … [E]xtremely moving … A literary mystery, a ghost story, a piece of contemporary gothic fiction, a perfect work of style and substance, a novel that admires the reader and acknowledges the transformative act of reading itself, this is truly a book like no other: a knockout piece of publishing in the year 2026.’
‘The reader advances across Mr. McKay’s superb translation as though compelled by a fierce highland wind. In the book’s telling, the Drayden sisters’ imaginative visions are so powerful that they reshape the way people experience reality. Readers, too, will finish this vast, teeming novel with a sense of a world transformed.’
About the Author
Anjet Daanje writes novels, short stories, and screenplays. Her breakthrough novel, The Remembered Soldier, won the Netherlands’ 2020 F. Bordewijk Prize and the Best Book of Groningen Prize. The Song of Stork and Dromedary won the 2023 Libris Literature Prize, the most prestigious award for Dutch literature, and the Boekenbon Prize, the Netherlands’ other major literary award — the first time that the Libris and Boekenbon prizes have been won by the same book. It has since been licensed in 13 languages and has sold over 100,000 copies in the Netherlands. Scribe has licensed North American rights in its edition to Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Translator
David McKay is an award-winning translator of Dutch fiction and nonfiction. Born and educated in the United States, he has lived in and around The Hague since 1997.
