The Assault

by Mulisch, Harry | Classic fiction (pre c 1945)
Published 13/03/2025 by Profile Books Ltd (Serpent's Tail) in the United Kingdom as part of the Serpent's Tail Classics series
Paperback | 208 pages
196 x 128mm | 169g

A timeless classic from the author of The Discovery of Heaven'Acknowledged as Holland's finest novelist' Guardian 'Mulisch is a rarity ... an instinctively psychological novelist' John UpdikeWith an introduction by Thomas Harding, author of Hanns and RudolfIn the bitter final months of the Second World War, the body of a Dutch Nazi collaborator is found on the doorstep of an ordinary family home. The repercussions are complex and terrible: the family is killed and the house burned to the ground; only the twelve-year-old son, Anton, survives. Following Anton as he reckons with this trauma through his life, The Assault is a powerful excavation of resistance and the collateral damage wrought on innocent people in times of war.

A runaway bestseller that sold 200,000 copies on first publication, this is a classic of Dutch literature from one of the greatest European writers of his time.