A story about stories

The Treasury of Tales, published in November 2020, is set in Napoleonic times in a town somewhere on the Moselle. It has folk tales, white lies and tall stories, kitchen sink romance and treasure hunt...

It’s the first novel published by Black Fountain Press, the English-language Luxembourg publisher, and you can buy it direct at:

https://www.blackfountain.lu/books/the-treasury-of-tales

In March 2021, The Treasury of Tales was shortlisted for the Prix Servais, awarded annually to the most significant literary work published in Luxembourg during the previous year. It was the first English-language novel to be shortlisted for the prize.

Review on Land.lu, December 2020:

“Even after you stop reading you will go on spinning the different threads together in your head. The magic of novel writing has triumphed once again!”

Never mind RBS and Barclays; 

meet the greediest banker of them all...

The Hoogen-Stoogen Tulip was published in 2013 and shortlisted for the Luxembourg Book Prize. It tells the story of Jan Hoogen-Stoogen, a poor tulip grower, whose daughter, Sarah, manages to grow the first ever black tulip.  The bulb is bought by the richest and greediest tulip merchant of Amsterdam,  Fattmann van Biggestbanken, but Fattmann’s investment of course goes hideously wrong.  

The book is illustrated by Carlo Schmitz, the wonderful, satirical Luxembourg illustrator.

Review by RTL, book of the week, 2 October 2013:

“Wozu Raffgier, Macht und Spekulationen führen können, und wie ein kleiner Zufall manchmal das ganze Leben verändern kann – das erzählt die Geschichte Hoogen-Stoogen Tulp von Robert Schofield auf ganz besondere Art und Weise. Ein Buch, das Kinder, Jugendliche und Erwachsene gleichermaßen in seinen Bann zieht und mit seinen eindrucksvollen Illustrationen fasziniert.”

“...the consequences of greed, power and speculation, and how a small coincidence can sometimes change a whole life - this is the story of The Hoogen-Stoogen Tulip, told in this remarkable way by Robert Schofield.

A book that draws in children, teenagers and adults alike, and fascinates with its impressive illustrations.”

You can buy The Hoogen-Stoogen Tulip online at:

https://editionsguybinsfeld.lu/fr/shop/dhoogen-stoogen-tulp/

Choose the English or the Luxembourgish version on the drop-down tab.

Award-winning debut novel

The Fig Tree and The Mulberry was published in the summer of 2011. 

It follows a young English girl called Anna Turner as she is evacuated from London to New Zealand during the Second World War, at the age of six. At the end of the War, she is told she must go back to England, even though she now feels her home is in New Zealand. With only a few possessions in a small case she returns, but before being picked up at Waterloo station by the parents she no longer remembers, she is in danger of losing all her jealously-guarded memories of New Zealand. 

This book won a prize in the National Literary competition in Luxembourg.

Review of The Fig Tree and the Mulberry, Letzebuerger Land, 16 September 2011

“The narrative sweeps you along as it alternates between present and past, between the truly dramatic moments of a torpedo attack and the quieter, domestic scenes.”

Readers’ comments:

Olga, Luxembourg: “I just wanted to say how much I liked your book... Your story deeply moved me. The scene where she left, not saying anything to her New Zealand dad, nearly broke my heart.”

Ruth, York: “I also experienced being sent away from New Zealand after the war - it was ghastly. I was amazed that you could capture the feeling I had growing up in Mission Bay in Auckland.”