Bakker is a gardener by trade, having acquired his gardening license in 2006.[1] He says writing and gardening are compatible. Bakker works as a skating instructor in winter.[1]
Available in English translation by Bakker are Boven is het stil and De omweg. Among Bakker's other works are a children's dictionary and Pear Trees Bloom White, a young adult novel.[4]
In 2002 Bakker was hiking through mountains whilst on holiday in Corsica when he first thought up The Twin.[1] He thought about a son who might "do something terrible to his father" but was left "frustrated" when the idea failed to progress any further until one day he began to write at random.[1]Boven is het stil was published in 2006 and its English translation, titled The Twin, followed in 2008.[5] The novel's Dutch title could be translated as "Upstairs, everything is quiet."
Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Eindhoven libraries all nominated The Twin for the International Dublin Literary Award.[1] Bakker received it in Dublin on 17 June 2010.[1] He was the first Dutch writer to win the prize, the world's most lucrative individual literary award, with a €100,000 prize.[1][5]The Twin defeated 155 titles from more than 40 countries.[6] The judges said his writing was "wonderful: restrained and clear" and that Bakker "excels at dialogue".[7]The Twin has also received praise from J. M. Coetzee.[8] Bakker spoke of the need "to lie down for a while" when he was announced as the winner and said "It's wonderful".[1] Opting not to give a speech he instead played a tape recording of "Waar is de zon?", the Dutch entry in Eurovision Song Contest 1994 (which also occurred in Dublin).[5]
Bakker credited David Colmer with helping "me realise it really is a book, and I am a writer".[1] Colmer translated the book from its original Dutch into the English language and received €25,000 of the prize money for his efforts.[1] Bakker said he planned to buy a Dutch grey horse with his money as "I just love these big beasts".[1]
De omweg, Bakker's third adult novel was published in October 2010 and later translated into English as The Detour, again by David Colmer. It is a study in self-searching, self-assertion and the nature of pain, narrated by a middle-aged Dutchwoman who has fled her husband to live in the solitude of rural Wales.[9] It won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (2013).[10][11]
According to Bakker, The Detour came from a "hugely depressed" time in his life. "I write instinctively. Something wants to come out. Only now do I see that this book is terribly much about myself. I write from the back of my mind. I don't see what I'm doing."[2]
June
June is Bakker's second adult novel, published in Dutch in 2009. It was translated by David Colmer and published in English in 2015.[2]
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