Saskia Goldschmidt made her debut in 2011 withVerplicht gelukkig, portret van een familie Obliged to happiness, portrait of a family). In the book the writer researches how traumas of parents, loaded with survivors guild, are passed on to the after-war-generation. Elsbeth Etty, reviewer of the Newspaper NRC, wrote:
A story that is well composed and strongly written. A personal story that, although the context is very specific, is universal in time and place. Painfully liberating…
After this swirling start Goldschmidt continued with great pace. Within one and a half year her first novel appeared: De Hormoonfabriek (The Hormone Factory). The book was on the longlist of the Libris Literature Prize and was nominated for the Euregio prize. Translations appeared in the USA (the Other Press), Germany (DTV), France (Gallimard), South-Africa (Protea Boekhuis), United Kingdom (Sarabands), Turkey (Bence Kitap) and Bulgaria. Together with scriptwriter and director Peter te Nuyl, Goldschmidt wrote the scenario for the podcast under the same name. Twelve and a half hour radio play was broadcasted on Radio 1.
Film talents, the production company of Jaques Audiard, took an option on the film rights.
Every book of Goldschmidt starts with intense journalistic and participatory research. She recognizes her style in the Philip Roth quote: First I go up and down on the diving board of reality, before I jump into the water of fiction. The making of Schokland, Goldschmidt’s next book, will appear in September 2018 at Uitgeverij Cossee.
Before Goldschmidt became a full time writer she worked for thirty years as a theatre maker, producer and teacher. She worked with different youth theatre groups and together with artistic leader Ad de Bont she realized youth theater productions in Curacao. Goldschmidt also worked as project manager at the at the Tropenmuseum Junior, managing an exchange project between children in Amsterdam and Teheran (2003-2006).
She worked for twenty years as a training actress and co-trainer in educating hospital staff (Mainly for AMC) in different communication issues.
Since the autumn of 2016 Goldschmidt lives in the north of Groningen, a rural area struck by earthquakes. She lives in a small house two miles out of a village.
In 2015 De Voddenkoningin (The Vintage Queen) appeared, and will appear in German translation Die Vintage Queen (June 2018, DTV).
The Vintage Queen
The Vintage Queen 384 pages, 100,200 words, published in 2015 German rights sold to dtv
English sample translation available
The Vintage Queen is the swirling life story of Koko, who collected old clothes in the sixties and seventies, turned them into vintage fashion, and lost everything at the peak of her career. It is also the story of duds and frazzle. About rag-and- bone men who turned into entrepreneurs, hippies turned into businessmen, charity became big business. And about ideals we used to uphold. During the roaring sixties, Koko travels through Europe looking for clothes, and wraps the merchants around her finger with her charm and sturdiness. She is successful and becomes a brand: Koko’s, known in Milan, Paris, and Berlin.
She had learned the tricks of the trade from her mother when she was just a little girl. Whenever her mother came home with yet another bad boyfriend, the silent Koko would retreat into her fantasy world, surrounded by doll’s clothing she made herself. By the time she turns sixteen she sees that the most beautiful second-hand dresses, evening gowns, and party clothes made from lace, velvet, and silk are being sold by the kilo at the market. What a waste, she thinks, and when she leaves school she starts her own business. She buys old clothes, makes small modifications, and sells them as vintage clothes. She has good taste and a keen eye for what people might like. Her stall at the market is turned into a boutique shop, which becomes the place to be for fashionistas, fashion journalists, and couturiers. But success in fashion is brittle and fleeting, and the competition is killing. Business can crumble, drift, or go up in smoke from one day to the next. Both fairytale and tragedy, and an unforgettable portrait of an enterprising woman.
Praise for The Vintage Queen
‘Goldschmidt is a genuine storyteller. This is a fascinating story from start to finish. Goldschmidt’s strength is in her ability to bring her characters to life. Her best book so far.’ – Noordhollands Dagblad ****
‘Goldschmidt creates a colorful portrait of the roaring seventies and eighties. The Vintage Queen is a wannahave for every vintage fashionista.’ – de Volkskrant
‘The tone is light and lively in direct, sparkling sentences. It is rare to hear someone tell so fervently about darts, seams, hems, buttonholes, tulle, lace, silk lining or wrinkled collars.’ – NRC Handelsblad
‘A compelling story with a tragic undertone about the second-hand clothing industry with precision and a sense of decor. Well-written and worldly.’ – De Telegraaf
‘The Vintage Queen is more than Koko’s vibrant life story: it is also a gripping portrait of the last decades and it shows how idealism becomes fierce business. A beautiful book.’ – Libelle
Cossee Publishers, Kerkstraat 361, 1017 HW Amsterdam, the Netherlands | For more information, please contact Laurens Molegraaf: molegraaf@cossee.com or visit www.cossee.com/foreignrights. | To support Dutch literature beyond our borders, translation grants can be obtained through The Dutch Foundation For Literature. Visit www.letterenfonds.nl/en/grants for more information.
The Hormone factory
In 2012 appeared: The Hormone Factory 288 pages, 75,000 words. Rights sold to France (Gallimard), Germany (DTV), South Africa (Protea Boekhuis), Turkey (Dünya Agaci), the United States (The Other Press), UK (Saraband). Filmrights sold to Jaques Audiard. Longlisted for the Libris Literature Prize 2013 Full English, German and French translations available. The autor wrote, together with Peter te Nuyl, a 12,5 hours audiodrama, directed by the latter, which was broadcasted on National Dutch Radio.
While writing her successful debut Obligatory Happy, Saskia Goldschmidt encountered a storyline that ignited her imagination. In the 1930’s one of her distant family members set out for an ingenious enterprise; to extract hormones, such as testosterone, from the offal of the meat factory. He founded an international pharmaceutical company. But by testing these hormones on the girls from the factory, they were walking a thin line between entrepreneurship and ethics. Love and envy between brothers, the conflict between commerce and science, factory girls stuffed with oestrus hormones and testosterone driven guys,
The Hormone Factory is a thrilling story inspired by historical facts, in which the space between good and evil is clouded by the lust for progress. The successful entrepreneur Mordechai de Paauw – Motke to his friends – looks back on his life. He and his twin brother Aron started a breathtaking project in the 1920’s. With the help of the famous professor and pharmacologist Rafaël Levine, they were the first to successfully distil hormones out of waste meat from Motke’s abattoir. The starting conditions aren’t favourable. The catholic country town is struck by crime and poverty, and the rise of fascism in the 1930’s makes the air thick with a toxic mixture of envy, anti-Semitism and moral corruption. But Motke carries on and no price is too high for him. But, looking back after World War II has ended, it seems no one has made it through this period without serious scars.
‘A story written with colour and momentum.’ – de Volkskrant
‘The beautiful novel about the proud tyrant De Pauw is based on fiction, but probably contains a lot more truth than we would like.’ – Brabants Dagblad
‘A strong book. Goldschmidt has a fine style of writing and knows how to build a good story. She also knows how to create good and credible characters. A true recommendation.’ – de Leesfabriek
Publishers about The Hormone Factory:
Jean Mattern from Gallimard in Paris, France:‘I was impressed by the way Saskia Goldschmidt tells us this almost unbelievable story. It takes place in troubled times, and as such, the destiny of a Jewish family business in the Netherlands threatened by Nazi-Germany would already have been a great story line, but the author manages to weave questions about science, jealousy between brothers and sex into the narrative in such a way that the book becomes a real page-turner. The rare combination of a great plot and fascinating underlying interrogations, told in a very clear and gripping voice.’
Judith Gurewich from The Other Press in New York, US: ‘The Hormone Factory marks a paradigm shift in the way we look at the world after World War II. Saskia had the courage to write a story based on true events that challenges a certain “post modern” hypocrisy while it recounts the logic of a perversion that had terribly destructive ramifications until it was brought to his own logical conclusion. A disturbing book for sure but one that forces us to think of how the marriage between science and capitalism can lead to disasters when people go wrong once they are in charge.’
Praise for The Hormone Factory:
‘A story written with color and momentum.’ – de Volkskrant
‘A beautiful novel in which we get the sense of that age of progress in between the two great wars. In which the crisis is haunting, and the war does its gruesome business. Money, power, hormones, science, love, abuse and betrayal are the threads with which the book is woven. A story in which testosterone and estrogen grab the characters by the throat. The novel about the proud tyrant De Pauw, that is based on imagination, but probably contains a lot more truth than we would like.’ – Brabants Dagblad
‘Goldschmidt’s tone is fascinating, picturesque and humorous. The fantastic formulated passage about the existence of God is hilarious. She has written a enthralling story in which she seduces the reader with beautiful sentences.’ – Literair Nederland
‘If you want to you can read The Hormone Factory as a indictment against the ruthless capitalist. If you don’t care for a message you can indulge yourself in a villain’s story. A villain you wouldn’t want to get close to, but you’ll be mesmerized by his last words until death is merciful on him.’ – Recensieweb ****
‘The success of The Hormone Factory isn’t just Motke’s fascinating wickedness. But he is the heart of this exciting story in which the birth of modern medical science, post-war prosperity and science and commerce bargaining come together. It makes Motke a classical bad guy. He doesn’t settle for less and creates changes, for better or for worse.’ – 8weekly.nl
‘A well-written novel. Full of shame you read the motives of a successful entrepreneur who abuses his power shamelessly. He often gets away with it but not at home, which he finds out too late.’ – Krings Booksellers ****
‘A strong book. Goldschmidt has a fine style of writing and knows how to build a good story. She also knows how to create good and credible characters. A true recommendation.’ – de Leesfabriek
Obliged to Be Happy, portrait of a family
Obliged to Be Happy, portrait of a family (Uitgeverij Cossee), a book about the quest for her family history and the way this history influenced her childhood. A book about the way how trauma is passed on from one generation to the next.
Praise for Obliged to be happy:
A personal story of all times, despite its specific context. Liberating painful.’ – Elsbeth Etty in NRC Handelsblad
‘She builds her story in changing scenes, in the present and the past, and she has an eye for dramatic and comical details. These paragraphs, set against the background of grievance of the War, are very moving.’ – Aleid Truijens in de Volkskrant ****
‘A warm pulsating story that moves. Her father could not have wished for a more beautiful tribute.’ – Noordhollands Dagblad ****
‘Saskia Goldschmidt can fluently and clearly switch between past and present in Obligatory Happy.’ – Red
