Listen - Sacha Bronwasser

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Listen

by
Sacha Bronwasser

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Title:	Listen
Author:	Sacha Bronwasser
Genre:	Novel
Written:	2023 (Eng. 2025)
Length:	232 pages
Original in:	Dutch
Availability:	Listen - US
	Listen - UK
	Listen - Canada
	Was du nie sehen wirst - Deutschland

	from: Bookshop.org (US)

Dutch title: Luister
Translated by David Colmer

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Our Assessment:

B+ : works surprisingly well

See our review for fuller assessment.

Review Summaries
Source	Rating	Date	Reviewer
The NY Times Book Rev.	.	21/12/2025	Sarah Weinman
NRC	.	23/2/2023	Thomas de Veen
Het Parool	.	4/3/2023	Dieuwertje Mertens
World Lit. Today	.	3-4/2026	J.Madison Davis

From the Reviews:

"I was engaged from the get-go by Bronwasser's Listen, a riveting exploration of how random crime can have lasting effects on people. Ably translated from the Dutch by David Colmer, the novel explores what it is to be young in a city not your own, free to adhere to whatever capricious whim you might want -- only to be upended by circumstances far beyond your control." - Sarah Weinman, The New York Times Book Review

"Wat voor boek is dit ? Bronwassers verteltrant zou kunnen irriteren, als die niet vooral intrigeerde. Luister heeft iets W.F. Hermans- en Peter Terrin-achtigs, met dat stalkerige, dat onbestemd onheilspellende, terwijl het verhaal toch ook gedecideerd en beeldend, en beslist doorlezenswaardig verteld wordt. Het volgende deel doet dan weer denken aan Niña Weijers’ De consequenties (.....) Maries ‘verteldaad’ bevat een ontroerende tragiek: krachtig maar ook aandoenlijk. Daarmee krijgt Bronwassers roman, die ontzettend ingenieus is en zich vooral op het hoofd richtte, uiteindelijk ook een warm en menselijk hart." - Thomas de Veen, NRC

"Taal is haar middel om dit verhaal te vertellen in levendige observaties (het oog van de fotograaf, de taal van een schrijver). Je verwacht een voorspelbaar verhaal over machtsmisbruik tussen docent en student; een grimmige coming-of-age, maar Bronwasser verrast de lezer met een ander, gelaagder verhaal, met een interessante structuur. De verschillende perspectieven en sprongen in de tijd zorgen steeds voor nieuwe inzichten." - Dieuwertje Mertens, Het Parool

"The latter half of Listen engages with photography and the ability of the photograph (or art in general) to create and shape the identity of its subjects as well as the power of the mentor to shape the student. Yet, despite what might seem to be well-worn topics, Bronwasser keeps the reader in a world that is fresh without being self-consciously so, a quality that, it should be said, is excellently reflected in David Colmer’s translation." - J. Madison Davis, World Literature Today

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Listen opens with a short prologue, dated September 2021 and referencing the coördinated terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday, 13 November 2015. It is addressed to Flo, who was a victim in those attacks -- though she survived --, with the narrator also mentioning a time even earlier: "when we were still so young. Me, not even twenty; you, not yet thirty". The narrator was a student, and Flo her instructor; obviously something significant happened in that relationship -- but it's quite a while before the narrator gets to that: the novel is presented in five parts, and only the third of these, 'Flo and M. 1987-1989', beginning roughly halfway in, tells their story.
       In the first part of the novel, the narrator, Marie, tells: 'Philippe's Story 1986', explaining that he -- "A man I knew only briefly and you not at all" -- is an essential part of the story, though it takes quite a while before it becomes clear why.
       Philippe's story is not uninteresting: the youngest of four children in a well-to-do family, he is an anxious, worrying child, with lots of little tics:

Words like compulsion, obsession, and anxiety were carefully avoided -- the Lamberts did not suffer from things like that. A little sensitive, perhaps.

       What Philippe suffers from is: "Knowledge of the future". Not premonitions or suspicions of things that might happen, but: "knowledge, more or less reliable, that manifested itself as a feeling on his skin". It's mostly not like he can predict specific events, and he often worries about things that don't seem to happen, but he lives with these unpleasant certainties, a frequent sense of a kind of foreboding -- and, as he eventually tells Marie: "It was no use to anyone, he said. It was a curse".
       Philippe lucks into falling in love with an Air France stewardess, Laurence, who has a good calming influence on him and they marry and have a son, Nicolas. As was usual in the Lambert household, they planned to hire someone to take care of the child -- opting for an international au pair, "a new one each year, that's how it's done these days", with grandmother Lambert making all the arrangements (including paying her, and putting her up in a room in the old family building -- separate from where Philippe and his family now live). In the summer of 1986, the latest arrival, Eloïse, takes up her position.
       Philippe eventually comes to obsess about Eloïse, practically stalking her. It's not the usual kind of obsession that one might expect an employer to have for his teenage au pair; Philippe's is one of concern; he has that familiar (to him) feeling. Still: bad things happen.
       The second part of the novel is: 'Marie's Story 1989', where Marie describes her first months in Paris and her new position, working as an au pair for Philippe and Laurence, taking care of their two children. Circumstances have changed for the family, as Philippe has been left scarred and marked by the events from three years earlier -- but he is much less of a presence here. This section is more about young Dutch girl Marie, immersed in a new culture and language, adapting to a new life in Paris, and these unusual circumstances. It's also clear that she is fleeing something, and the repeated mentions of Flo -- to whom her narrative continues to be addressed -- makes clear that something that happened with Flo is what drove her away. But what that transgression was is still not revealed yet.
       It is in Paris that Marie finally realizes:

Maybe I need to rid myself of our story -- which had stopped six months before and now seemed to be receding, my history with you that seemed, in the new situation, more and more like fiction -- maybe I needed to purge myself in one fell swoop.
So that's what I did. In a couple of evenings I wrote it all down.

She continued to fiddle around with it a bit, but it is this account that then takes up the third part of the novel, 'Flo and M. 1987-1989' and finally gets to the heart of the matter, of what happened between the two.
Here Marie chronicles the start of her time at university where at some point instructor Flo takes an interest in her and invites her to her regular Friday night open house cum salon. Of course, Marie goes, and becomes a regular -- though:

Nobody, except for you now and then, pays any particular attention to me, butthat simplifies things. I'm like a plant that's been put in a corner and is being given time to acclimatize.

       Later she will also take a class with Flo, and Flo continues to pay attention to her. At one point: "you suggest, no, inform me, that from now on you won't refer to me as Marie, but as M. That's more adult, you say, less generic". It all pleases Marie some, but also disconcerts her: "I don't see what's happening, I don't feel it, I don't understand it. Maybe I don't want to feel it and I don't want to know about it -- how could I ?"
       Of course, there is a terrible violation looming, devastating when it finally hits Marie. As with Philippe and Eloïse, however, it is not the one one might expect, of how a teacher might take advantage of a naïve young student. It is no less awful and crushing for that, and leads to Marie abandoning her studies and, eventually, taking up the au pair position.
       The fourth part then returns to her time in Paris, 'Marie, Philippe 1989-1990', where Philippe and Laurence's marriage breaks apart and Marie learns of Philippe's unusual gift/curse (including, amusingly, some of its limits, as in his reaction to the fall of the Berlin Wall: "He hadn't seen it coming. November 9, November 9, he hadn't anticipated it, that was poor of him.... A weird way to respond to world news, I thought"). The different pieces then do come somewhat together in the final part, about which we already know some of the details: the 2015 terrorist attacks, and the fact that Flo was involved in them. The roles, or places, of Marie and Philippe are also slotted into place -- it all fits together in the end, despite the odd-seeming way the novel has been structured and built up.
       It is, on one level -- the biggest level --, an odd and kind of ridiculous story. But it works surprisingly well, and much of the other levels, the various, in part very different stories and sections, are very well done. The Lambert family is well presented, and the stages of Marie's life, both as student in the Netherlands and coming under Flo's sway as well as then trying to find a hold in Paris are convincingly presented. Philippe's ability is, of course, a ridiculous stretch, but still, Bronwasser situates it well in a world of constant unexpected danger, larger -- terrorist attacks in Paris are repeatedly invoked and presented -- as well as domestic.
       The odd structure is one of the appealing parts of the novel, too; it would seem to be a very muddled way of telling a story, but -- helped by the distinctness and power of the separate sections -- it works surprisingly well.
       The strong, evocative writing -- of Paris, and of the uncertainties of youth in situations that seem beyond its comprehension -- make for a compelling, solid novel. (Among the few sections that don't ring true -- aside from Philippe's premonitions, a kind of silliness one has to accept -- are when Marie finally finds she has command of the French language, that she can understand what is being said around her; the uncomprehending (of language and, more particularly, everything else) Marie is the far more interesting character.)

- M.A.Orthofer, 13 February 2026

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Links:

Listen:

Penguin Books publicity page
Dutch Foundation For Literature information page
Ambo|Anthos Uitgevers publicity page
Arche Literatur Verlagv

Reviews:

Sacha Bronwasser:

Official site

Other books of interest under review:

See Index of Dutch literature

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About the Author:

Dutch author Sacha Bronwasser was born in 1968.

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