Sacha Bronwasser
Sacha Bronwasser (Rijswijk, Тhe Netherlands, 1968) is a writer, art historian, curator, and former art critic. She studied graphic design, French, and art history, and for twenty years wrote about visual art as a critic and journalist for the newspaper de Volkskrant. She has also worked as a curator and presenter on numerous art and cultural projects.
She made her debut as a novelist in 2019 with All That Is Not Deceived, which was highly acclaimed by critics. In 2023, she published her second novel, Listen, a complex and psychologically rich story about art, memory, guilt, and invisible trauma. Set between Paris in the 1980s and Paris following the terrorist attacks of 2015, the novel was nominated for the Libris Literature Prize, the NS Audience Award, and the Inktaap, and achieved major commercial success. A film adaptation is currently in development.
In 2024, she published Occurrences, a collection of sixteen short stories inspired by specific works of art.
Her experience in the art world strongly influences her literary style, which often combines visual precision with psychological depth. For Bronwasser, art is not merely a subject but also a way of seeing the world: she explores memory, trauma, power, human relationships, and the way art shapes our perception and understanding of reality.
Bronwasser lives on the Dutch coast.
Listen (Luister)
Translation to Macedonian: Elizabeta Bozhinoska
“Antolog”, Skopje, 2026
A tangled and gripping mystery set between Paris and the Netherlands, which became a true European literary sensation.
In 1989, twenty-year-old Marie accepts an opportunity to work as a babysitter in Paris—even though it means giving up her prestigious art programme in the Netherlands. The city, the language, and the complicated French family she works for soon overshadow the turmoil and pain she experienced at school.
But years later, during the Paris attacks of 2015, Marie is shocked to recognize her former teacher—the main reason she fled the Netherlands—among those injured in the attacks, in the same arrondissement where her former employers live. The past she was certain she had left behind comes rushing back, along with the questions she had believed could remain unanswered while she moved on with her life.
This “incredibly ingenious” coming-of-age story raises important and unsettling questions about the thin line between memory and recording, between seeing and being seen, between chance and destiny, revenge and healing—and about what it means to walk that line.