Wonder

"While fully aware that such an honorable title can only be used in great exceptions in Flemish literature, I would call Wonder a masterpiece."-Paul de Wispelaere, Vlaamse GidsIn his Faulknerian novels, Hugo Claus mixes expertly crafted stories of postwar Flanders with poignant psychological portraits rich in mythological and literary allusion. In Wonder , a landmark of Flemish literature, Claus mixes the souls of a handful of displaced and desperate individuals with the backdrop of Flanders and visions of the Polish and Russian fronts of WWII. The dense emotional texture of the characters entangled in complex moral labyrinths combined with a deep feeling for Flemish history make the novel a symphony that only Hugo Claus could have composed.Hugo Claus (1929-2008), author of dozens of plays, novels, and collections of poetry, is arguably the most important Belgian writer of the twentieth century. His most celebrated novel is The Sorrow of Belgium (1983).Michael Henry Heim is the winner of the 2005 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize, the ALTA Translation Prize, and the AATSEEL Award. He has translated the work of Günter Grass, Milan Kundera, Bohumil Hrabal, and Péter Esterházy.

The prose, poetry, and paintings of Hugo Claus (1929-2008) were as influential as they were groundbreaking. His novels include The Sorrow of Belgium, his magnum opus of postwar Europe, as well as Desire, The Swordfish, Mild Destruction, Rumors, and The Duck Hunt. His corpus of poetry is immense and stunningly diverse. Claus's painting led him to become involved in the avant-garde Cobra movement. Impossible to pin down. Claus was eclectic and in constant motion; his work is kaleidoscopic. In addition to receiving every major Dutch-language literary prize, Claus received the 2002 Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding for his body of work.

Michael Henry Heim has translated dozens of novels, plays, and essays from a number of languages. His translations include The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, My Century by Günter Grass, Helping Verbs of the Heart by Péter Esterházy, and Thomas Mann¢s Death in Venice. He is the recipient of the American Literary Translators Association Prize, the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translation Prize, and the PEN American Center Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.