What I’d Rather Not Think About

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Jente Posthuma is a Dutch writer. She studied French and literature at the University of Utrecht and the Université Paris Diderot. After her studies she worked as a journalist, doing long interviews for De Groene Amsterdammer, NRC and de Volkskrant.

What if one half of a pair of twins no longer wants to live? What if the other can’t live without them? This question lies at the heart of Jente Posthuma’s deceptively simple What I’d Rather Not Think About. The narrator is a twin whose brother has recently taken his own life. She looks back on their childhood, and tells of their adult lives: how her brother tried to find happiness, but lost himself in various men and the Bhagwan movement, though never completely. In brief, precise vignettes, full of gentle melancholy and surprising humour, Posthuma tells the story of a depressive brother, viewed from the perspective of the sister who both loves and resents her twin, struggles to understand him, and misses him terribly.

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