Waiting for Gerard: The Long Arrival of Reve’s De avonden in English

This chapter explores the long and complex translation trajectory of De avonden (1947), the debut novel by Dutch author Gerard Reve, into English. Although the novel has become a cornerstone of modern Dutch literature, it took almost seventy years to reach Anglophone readers. Published in 2016 as The Evenings (trans. Sam Garrett) by the London-based independent publisher Pushkin Press, the English translation was presented as a missing masterpiece and Reve as an underappreciated provocateur and the Netherlands’ first openly gay writer. Drawing on interviews with pivotal intermediaries, this chapter reconstructs the book's translation history in English, revealing a string of failed translation attempts and a network of actors eager to leverage the book's transnational symbolic potential. Taking a sociological, multi-level field approach, the analysis demonstrates the implications of Reve's complicated exophonic relationship with English, shows how decisive interventions by the grant manager and foreign rights manager determined which publisher and translator would finally bring The Evenings to Anglophone readers, and examines connections between the translation's branding and reception.