Peter Terrin (born 3 October 1968) is a Belgian novelist, and a winner of the European Union Prize for Literature. [1] He is the author of several novels and two collections of short stories.
Terrin's first novel, Kras ("Scratch") was published in 2001, and his 2003 novel Blanco ("Blank"), described as a " Kafka-like reality breakdown" and translated into Swedish in 2006 [2] was his breakthrough. [3] Knack, a Belgian weekly that Terrin blogged for, described Blanco as the best Dutch-language novel about the father-son relationship since Ferdinand Bordewijk's Karakter. [4] His third novel, Vrouwen en kinderen eerst ("Women and Children First") was published in 2004.
Terrin's 2009 novel De bewaker (translated into English in 2012, "The Guard"), called a "coldly beautiful, dystopian allegory" by Eileen Battersby in The Irish Times, [5] won the European Union Prize for Literature in 2010, [1] and his novel Post mortem won the 2012 AKO Literatuurprijs. [4]
Terrin cites Willem Frederik Hermans as an important influence for his minimalist style, and critics have recognized the influence of J. Bernlef in his prose. [4]