A Peasant Farmer’s Psalm

Felix Timmermans

Translated by Paul Vincent

One of the best in the Dutch literary canon.

A Peasant Farmer’s Psalm is one of Felix Timmermans’ most renowned novels. In it, a farmer recounts the story of his life: his connection to the soil which he works, his relationship with God (and pastor), and his natural acceptance of his and his family’s fate. The story, written in the first person, echoes with this simple man’s love for life.

“Timmermans’ language breathes soil, air and light, and his surprising sensory metaphors are tiny electric shocks that keep the reader on their toes. They create laughter and wonder and occasionally make your head spin. And sometimes they’re so beautiful, I play a game with myself and try to smuggle them into conversations. (…) The vitality of Peasant Psalm comes to us from an unspoiled, lost Flanders. That’s partly why, in this day and age, Timmermans’ sentences feel like a medicine that provides a detox for our hectic lives – just keep taking it all in, bit by bit, until the novel is finished. He generously gives us some much-needed grounding.
Bart Van Look, author of “The Burgundians”.

About the Author
Felix Timmermans (1886-1947) initially worked as a pattern drawer in his father’s lace business. After World War I, he moved to the Netherlands, where he stayed until 1920, earning his living as a writer, poet, painter and artist. Although he also published poetry, plays and adaptations of medieval texts, Timmermans primarily wrote novels, fictionalised biographies and stories. In 1935, he published his well-known work, A Peasant Farmer’s Psalm, a novel that reveals a deep knowledge of suffering, in which praise of nature gives way to praise of humanity.

About the Translator
Paul Vincent studied at Cambridge and Amsterdam, and after teaching Dutch at the University of London for over twenty years became a full-time translator in 1989. Since then he has published a wide variety of translated poetry, non-fiction and fiction, including work by Achterberg, Claus, Couperus, Elsschot, Jellema, Mullisch, De Moor and Van den Brink. He is a member of the Society of Dutch Literature in Leiden, and has won the Reid Prize for poetry translation, the Vondel Prize for Dutch-English translation and (jointly) the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize.
For Snuggly Books, he has translated The Dying Peasant, by Karel van de Woestijne (2018).

Paperback, 178 pages. Release date, November 7, 2023
ISBN-13: 978-1-64525-139-2
Price: US$18.00