Detour, The

Description: This is the winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and shortlisted for the Impac Dublin Prize. "A wonderful novel. Wise and generous to a fault of all our human failings and frailties". (Lloyd Jones, author of Mister Pip). A Dutch woman rents a remote farm in rural Wales. She says her name is Emilie. She has left her husband, having confessed to an affair. In Amsterdam, her stunned husband forms a strange partnership with a detective who agrees to help him trace her. They board the ferry to Hull on Christmas Eve. Back on the farm, a young man out walking with his dog injures himself and stays the night, then ends up staying longer. Yet something is deeply wrong. Does he know what he is getting himself into? And what will happen when her husband and the detective arrive?

Review: "Simple and devastating" -- Daniel Hahn Independent "The Detour is a beautiful, oddly moving work of fiction, a quiet read that lingers long in the mind, like the ghosts that linger in our homes, and in the land around us" -- John Burnside Guardian "This is a novel full of hints and mysteries... [It] will almost certainly keep you routed to your chair until the denouement." -- Connie Bensley The Spectator "Quietly astonishing" -- Jonathan Gibbs Times Literary Supplement "Intelligently thoughtful" -- Eileen Battersby Irish Times

Prizes: Winner of Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013. Shortlisted for IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2014.

Author Biography: Gerbrand Bakker worked as a subtitler for nature films before becoming a gardener. His debut novel The Twin won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and will soon be made into a film. The Detour won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.