Helene 'Hella' Serafia Haasse (1918-2011) was a Dutch writer, often referred to as the 'Grande Dame' of Dutch literature. The author of seventeen novels as well as poetry, plays and essays, Haasse received numerous honours and awards during her lifetime, including the Netherlands State Award for Literature. Her books have been translated into many languages, including English, French, German, Swedish, Italian and Hungarian.
'[Haasse] has a gift for painting banquets, battles and great ceremonial meetings; these set-pieces glow from the text like rich old oils, ducky and mellow' * Washington Post * 'Marvelous... Haasse's panorama shows us how great events are experienced by believably human people' * USA Today * 'Starkly depicts not only an individual and a culture in crisis, but also compellingly reflects one age in another' * Chicago Tribune * 'This splendid book exemplifies the distant, yet poignantly resonant voices of fifteenth-century French court society' * New York Times Book Review * 'Written with a sure grasp of history, storytelling, and human nature' * Cleveland Plain Dealer *