As the newest book in the Hans Koning reprint series, The Kleber Flight, begins to arrive in bookstores, we bring you a link to Koning’s own essay in the New York Times “Writers on Writing” series, where he discusses his desire for a “subterranean” message in each of his books. As Koning writes:
What I believe [a novel] needs is evidence that its writer has gone through an awareness of the human condition, its comedy and melodrama, its mystery and tragedy. Isn’t it that awareness that can give the crucial dimension to the most banal occurrences we may want to describe? … A reader (and a reviewer) should find just as much in it as he or she is prepared to accept. Until one night, perhaps, when such a reader, for instance of my “Kleber Flight,” cannot get to sleep, and then suddenly the snake would raise its head, and he or she would start wondering if there was, after all, sense to what its hero (or antihero) was about on his destructive flight in that little Piper Tomahawk airplane. Or so I hope.
Read the full text of Hans Koning’s essay at the New York Times.
The Kleber Flight, and all the titles in the NewSouth Koning reprint series, are available directly from NewSouth Books online or by calling toll-free (866) 639-7688. They can also be ordered from Amazon.com, or your favorite local or online book retailer.