Afterlight

With its tight sentences and a fast pace, Afterlight moves like detective fiction. It's a poignant novel in which a single pregnant woman is mistreated in her conservative society; she remains resilient and determined to honour her baby's memory.' Foreword Reviews

The young free-spirited florist Frieda grew up in a strictly Catholic environment in the 1960s. When she steps onto a frozen river on a late winter afternoon, little does she know that everything is about to change for her. On the ice, she meets the married Otto. They experience a love that begins stormy and ends fatefully: Frieda becomes pregnant—a scandal in the world in which she moves. And so, she must never be the mother of her secret child.

For decades, she kept her memories of this episode in her life to herself. But the grief for the lost child remains, despite the later marriage, despite the son she still has. At the age of eighty-one, Frieda is suddenly alone again. The silent sorrow returns with force. Only then does she dare to face her story—and to share it.

With Afterlight, inspired by true events, Robben not only pulls back the veil on Frieda's story, but also shines a light on the experiences of countless women between the 1950s and 1980s. The result is an impressive story about buried female trauma, caused by society, organised religion, and the dominant social mores.