Eight Days with Angel
Silke is a girl who prefers to be alone. Whenever anyone tries to make friends with her, things go wrong. One day, out of the blue, she finds Angel on her usual bench in the park. ‘Move it!’ thinks Silke. ‘That’s my bench!’ But this guardian angel has been sent from heaven to discover what is wrong with Silke. But Silke bristles and tries everything to get rid of this pushy girl. Fortunately for Silke, this time that’s none too easy.
Tanneke Wigersma, a new Dutch talent, has achieved something special in her book Eight Days with Angel. She has written a comforting book about a difficult subject, and it also manages to be funny, entertaining, and wise. We don’t find out what’s bugging Silke for quite some time, and in this way the reader has plenty of opportunity to get to know and appreciate her. The last thing she is is a pathetic victim.
When it becomes clear halfway through the book what really is the matter, the revelation makes a deep impression, leaving the innocent reader trembling on the couch, as it becomes clear just how strong Silke really is.
“In a sincere manner, Wigersma has given a previously unheard and heart-rending voice to victims of incest. And, much to her credit, it is intended for an age group for which nothing adequate is available: children of around ten years of age.”
‘I’m a spider, “thinks Silke??, I hang in my web in the corner of the room. No one knows that I’m hanging here and no one can reach me with the vacuum cleaner. Down below in the room an unknown man is taking off an unknown girl’s pyjamas. I’m a spider so I don’t know them.’ Yet it is Angel who can ultimately convince Silke that she can’t keep quiet about her big secret for ever.
Big words are not needed for a subject like this, nor is tragedy predictable, as Wigersma shows peacefully and quietly. She gives all victims of incest a candid voice not heard before.
Pjotr van Lenteren
“In short, almost whispering sentences, Wigersma tells a shocking story. Not explicitly but latently, ominously present under the surface. In the description of everyday occurrences, the author succeeds in inducing an extremely oppressive atmosphere: there is something terribly wrong here.”
