Tonio: a requiem memoir

Winner of the 2012 Libris Literature Prize - the most prestigious literary prize in the Netherlands - and a bestseller in Holland and Germany, this is a mesmerising rendition of grief and love. On Pentecost 2010, Tonio - the only son of writer Adri van der Heijden - is hit by a car. He dies of his injuries that same day. Tonio is only 21. His parents are faced with the monstrous task of forging ahead with their lives in the knowledge that their only child will never come home, never again stop by just to catch up, never again go out shopping with his mother and bitch about passers-by, never again ask his father- 'Did you work well today?' Never again. Adri van der Heijden is driven by two compelling questions- what happened to Tonio during the final days and hours before the accident, and how could this accident happen? This search takes in various eyewitnesses, friends, police officers, doctors, and the mysterious Jenny - who turns out to have played a crucial role in Tonio's life during those final weeks. 'Raw, hard, but beautiful.' De Standaard 'A monument ot love and suffering- Tonio is one of the most powerful, compelling expressions of the human spirit in the face of its opposite, death and the void.' Die Welt Translated by Jonathan Reeder