Ananda Serné

Ananda Serné was born in the Netherlands in 1988. She studied at the Icelandic Academy of Fine Arts in Reykjavík and works as a visual artist and writer. She has already participated in several international exhibitions with her artistic works, which often highlight the relationship between nature and man.

She has published short stories in various Dutch literary magazines. Her debut novel »Nachtbloeiers« (2022, tr: Night Bloomers) is set in a near future in which almost everyone suffers from insomnia. So-called sleep guards are on the move to admit wandering people to sleep clinics. The cause of this new widespread disease is unclear. Is it spread by flesh flies, or have humans reached a new evolutionary stage? Narrator Eliza studied psychology in the Netherlands and now works at an institute for sleep research in Stavanger, Norway, where she is trying to prepare a study on the connection between insomnia and partner choice. When her boyfriend ends their relationship, Eliza embarks on an intoxicating journey through Norway, Taiwan, and the Netherlands. In search of an anchor – a person who offers her stability – her nights become shorter and shorter until the boundaries of reality begin to blur. »In a restrained narrative tone, Serné infuses her nonetheless feverish novel with bone-dry humor and intersperses sleep science findings, anecdotes from biology and references to art and literature.« (»De Morgen«). The novel was nominated for the Libris Literature Prize and the Hebban Debut Prize in the Netherlands.

Ananda Serné lives in Norway.

Status: April 2024

Nachtbloeiers
Uitgeverij Cossee
Amsterdam, 2022

German Translation:
Nachtblüher
Weissbooks
Berlin, 2024
(Ü: Andrea Kluitmann)