The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet has finally arrived instore. Not pointing the finger at a particular distributor, I’m not, but the books have been weeks late in arriving here. Now we have stock and I can finally tell you what a fabulous book this is. It’s set in Japan at the turn of the 18th century. Japan is still a closed off society with virtually no contact with the rest of the world. Japan has allowed the Dutch owned East India Company to occupy a small island, 120 metre long, in the port of Nagasaki as a trading post. The Dutch are not allowed off this island, the Japanese are not allowed onto the island except for trading purposes. And against this background we have a young, naive Dutch clerk who encounters a beautiful, scarred Japanese woman, a midwife who has been exposed to a limited amount of western medicine and who wants to learn more. This is a love forbidden by culture, tradition and law. Everything about this book is terrific - the plot, the characters and most importantly the writing. It’s a must read book.
