The Milky Way

Three children are sitting on a wall: brothers Bossie and Oskar, and their friend Gina. The highpoint of their day is the shuffling procession of ancient dachshund, Sam the Sausage, and his owner, Nancy Sinatra – an old woman who has earned the nickname because of her peculiar boots. Things start to happen when Nancy and Sam suddenly don’t appear for their daily walk down the street. The children’s imaginations run riot, which leads to all sorts of complications that reveal their true emotions and distress.

‘The Milky Way’ is an intimate story about growing pains, absence and transience. It is also about the thin line between fiction and reality, and inventing stories as a barrier against things that are too big and too scary. About wanting to stay small, but having to grow up. To quote the Boekenleeuw jury: ‘This is literature, great literature, for people big and small: surprisingly and beautifully formulated, rich, sober, suggestive and extremely atmospheric, and moreover expertly constructed, sentence after sentence. ‘The Milky Way’ is a book that, almost imperceptibly, is packed with craftsmanship.’