Moon and Sun
Curaçao, 1961. Twelve-year-old Max is taken by his father, taxi driver Roy Tromp, to the class of Brother Daniel from the Antilles. Max turns out to be a talented boy who dreams of becoming a teacher. Brother Daniel wants to help him. Max’s father’s illness and Trinta di Mei, the Curaçao uprising of 1969, put an end to that dream. Max is obliged to go to work and follows in his father’s footsteps to become a taxi driver.
An awe-inspiring and terrifying achievementHP/ De Tijd
Forty years on Max has now become a father with a son of his own, Sonny, and the crippled Roy lives in a care home. Max leaves Curaçao for the first time in his life and unexpectedly travels to the Netherlands, perhaps for good.
During a wakeful night in the summer of 2001 Brother Daniel looks back on his special relationship with the Tromp family and while he awaits news of Max he tells the story of where it all went wrong.
Against the background of a community trapped between tradition and change, between past and present, ‘Moon and Sun’ is a family saga about background and poverty, honour and betrayal – a tale of fathers and sons and the soul of an island.
Moving and fascinatingNRC Handelsblad