Everything in small

In Alles in het klein, letters on the one hand and stories and diary pages on the other have merged into a masterful autobiographical novel. The narrator's youth is dominated by the presence of his Yiddish grandmother with all her stories from a vanished world. Verpale writes about Mother Zulma's café, about the famous rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, about his successive lovers: the skinny apprentice hairdresser Kookske, the always barefoot Boes and the 'painfully beautiful' and meritorious poet Lotte. This book was the harvest of an inner necessity. 'I have to write,' Verpale declared. 'I am first and foremost a storyteller. I have to record all these stories because until I have done so I feel guilty. Consider me a chronicler against my will.' About Eriek Verpale: * Tristesse predominated in Eriek Verpale's life. But he did know how to make beautiful prose out of it. The writer never belonged anywhere. He was more than just a common man, but he also did not want to be an intellectual. - De Standaard About Everything in miniature: * An intoxicating whole. - Jessica Durlacher in de Volkskrant * I say that he wrote two masterpieces, Everything in miniature and the monologue Olivetti 82, which irrevocably pales much of what is praised to the skies today. - Luuk Gruwez in De Poëziekrant