What I'd Rather Not Think About

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE

What if one half of a pair of twins no longer wants to live? What if the other can't live without them?

These questions lie at the heart of Jente Posthuma's deceptively simple What I'd Rather Not Think About. The narrator is a twin whose brother has recently taken his own life. She looks back on their childhood, and tells of their adult lives, and of how her brother tried to find happiness, but lost himself in various men and the Bhagwan movement, though never completely.

In brief, precise vignettes, full of surprising humour and gentle melancholy, Posthuma tells the story of a depressive brother, viewed from the perspective of the sister who both loves and resents her twin, struggles to understand him, and misses him terribly.



'A unique story of a twin brother and sister, wryly funny and heartbreakingly sad. Her characters desperately try to make sense of our ever more complex world. This is a rare book. And Jente Posthuma is a treasure and a hell of a writer.'
-Herman Koch, international bestselling author of The Dinner

'From the opening pages of this novel I had no idea where it was going, but I trusted Posthuma completely. Tender, offbeat, and deftly drawn - I loved it.'
-Allee Richards, author of The Small Joys of Real Life

'What makes What I'd Rather Not Think About rise above the average mourning novel is its utter authenticity. Posthuma associates, philosophises, links memories to everyday actions, draws on films and television series and tries to interpret in a laconic, light-footed and pointed way. "Less is more" with Jente Posthuma. And again, she seems to be saying- nothing is "whole" here, in the subhuman. Everything rumbles, frays, and creaks.'
-The Telegraph