The Two Hearts Of Kwasi Boachi

'A virtuoso recreation of an extraordinary life' Daily Telegraph

A bravura rendering of historical detail... Japin's greatest accomplishment is the narrator's tone in which the voice of an embittered old man merges with that of a perceptive but scared and betrayed child

An elegant and ultimately moving fictional reworking of another troubling chapter of Europeans in Africa and Africans in Europe

Mesmerising... Like Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha, Japin's ventriloquism is virtually flawless

A deeply humane book about a spectacularly exotic subject

Arthur Japin's first novel The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi was in international bestseller and has since been adapted for the stage, opera and film. Casanova went straight into the Dutch bestseller lists and won the prestigious Libris prize.

In 1837, two young African princes arrive at the court of Willem I in the Netherlands. They have been given to the Dutch by the King of the Ashanti as surety in a deal over illegal slave trading. The two boys think they have been sent to acquire a European education, but time passes. They forget their native language and become exiles. Treated as curiosities by white people, their friendship suffers and their paths diverge. Years later, as the twentieth century dawns, the elderly Kwasi, now owner of a coffee plantation in Java, sits down to write his autobiography. Based on a true story, The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi is both a brilliant piece of storytelling and a moving portrayal of the search for identity and belonging.

Arthur Japin

David Colmer

This is Casanova as you've never seen him before - through the eyes of the girl who always loved him. Wonderfully imagined and deeply moving, it keeps you hooked till the final tear-stained page

To see the world through Lucia's eyes is to see it in the fullness of wonders and dangers most never notice

An enthralling tale on the mystery of first love and its endurance in the face of a lifetime of hardships

Andrea Di Robilant, author of A Venetian Affair

Amsterdam 1758, and a man is artfully seducing a woman. He is, to all appearances, Monsieur le Chevalier de Seingalt; she is a courtesan, well-known in Amsterdam for the fact that she never removes her veil. He sets her a challenge: if she can find a woman who has suffered after falling in love with him, she is entitled to resist his charms; if not, she should play his game. 
 
What Seingalt doesn't know is that he has already met the veiled woman many years ago, in another life. What Lucia doesn't know is that Seingalt will go down in history as one of the world's greatest lovers, Casanova. 
 
A deliciously entertaining and moving story of innocence and experience, love and sacrifice, In Lucia's Eyes takes the reader on an entrancing journey from the canals of Amsterdam to those of Venice, painting a glorious portrait of the eighteenth century.

Arthur Japin

Praise for In Lucia's Eyes

This is Casanova as you've never seen him before - through the eyes of the girl who always loved him. Wonderfully imagined and deeply moving, it keeps you hooked till the final tear-stained page

Its a delight

To see the world through Lucia's eyes is to see it in the fullness of wonders and dangers most never notice

This is Casanova as you've never seen him before - through the eyes of the girl who always loved him. Wonderfully imagined and deeply moving, it keeps you hooked till the final tear-stained page

Its a delight

To see the world through Lucia's eyes is to see it in the fullness of wonders and dangers most never notice

This is Casanova as you've never seen him before - through the eyes of the girl who always loved him. Wonderfully imagined and deeply moving, it keeps you hooked till the final tear-stained page

Its a delight

To see the world through Lucia's eyes is to see it in the fullness of wonders and dangers most never notice

Books by Arthur Japin

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