Hella S. Haasse is the grand old dame of Dutch letters. Irundina is a small novella written in her final years. It was published in 2016, and relatively unknown.

Haasse is, of course, known as a very gentle writer, with a true gift for spotting small detail, which turns out to encapture the whole. Haasse's debut was a novella called Oeroeg, which, although superficially just about interracial friendship, it came to stand for the whole colonial conflict between the Netherlands and Indonesia.

Likewise, Irundina superficially seems to be a soppy story about Haasse's housekeeper, but looking back to the year it was published, in 2016, we can now wonder with what foresight Haasse wrote such a novella that is so exemplary for the fate of many young people from countries all over the mediterranean and further afield to flock to Europe to find refuge and find means of earning a livelihood to support themselves or their loved ones at home. ( )