Papieren Kinderen: novellen en schetsen

A compact assortment of late‑nineteenth‑century Dutch sketches invites listeners into a world of cramped parlours, rattling carriage doors and the peculiar rituals of everyday life. The opening vignette follows an anxious actor, Adriaan Walten, as he steps through a creaking portal to meet the enigmatic host, W. F. Hostein, whose home is a stage of muted opulence and lingering cigarette smoke. Their uneasy exchange, tinged with humor and hidden tension, captures the subtle power plays that mark even the most ordinary encounters.

Each tale in the collection unfolds with a keen eye for language, preserving the original orthography while offering gentle modern guidance. The stories swing between comic observation, quiet melancholy and brief flashes of the surreal, all rendered in a voice that feels both antique and oddly immediate. Listeners will find themselves lingering over the nuanced portraits of characters whose small dramas echo larger questions about identity, respectability and the fleeting nature of performance.