Rags-to-Readers Grunberg to Tour Down Under
Chris Brice
Arnon Grunberg was at a loose end and strapped for cash. At just 23
years of age his future as an independent publisher in Amsterdam an
occupation inspired by a visit to the famous Frankfurt Book Fair was
looking desperate.
So he returned to the scene of the crime, so to speak, hoping to sell
the rights to the books on his list and, within a year, became the
hottest young writer in the Netherlands.
Before you could say flying Dutchman, Grunberg's first novel Blue
Mondays, which has been compared with Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus,
shot to the top of the Dutch best-seller lists and was quickly
translated into several languages.
With his story of a young man's vagabond life on the streets of
Amsterdam and in its infamous red-light district, Grunberg found fame.
Such was his celebrity status that, to his annoyance, he was even
recognised in Amsterdam bars by "crazy girls", no less. So
distracting did it all become that he headed to the Big Apple in
search of anonymity.
Now Grunberg is coming Down Under as one of the strong contingent of
European writers who will appear at the Adelaide Festival's Writers'
Week next year.
In an interview for a New York magazine, Grunberg filled in on how it
all happened at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
"I met a Dutch publisher there," he begins, "and we went to dinner
at a Chinese restaurant.
"I was telling stories about my family, about girls, about whores
and at the end of the night, in the cab, he handed me his card and
told me to write my stories down.
"When people are drunk they promise you a lot, so I did not think
much of it.
"Back in Amsterdam, after two months, he called me and asked where
was the book. So I started to write. Sometimes he would buy me a
dinner to finish a chapter.
"The will-work-for-food strategy paid off for both parties."
The novel was published in 1994 and Grunberg, then 24, was soon a
star.
"I was used to sitting in bars and noticing people, and all of a
sudden people in bars started recognising me. It wasn't easy,"
Grunberg says in the interview.
"Also, there were the girls that I met. I dated some of them at the
beginning and they were crazy.
"I like crazy people but they were really crazy. I think that the
dreams were nicer than the reality."
Grunberg is presently working on a second novel.