Joost de Vries (1983) is a Dutch novelist and essayist, an editor of the De Groene Amsterdammer magazine and a literary critic. His first novel Clausewitz (2010) garnered considerable attention. It has been called a biblio-thriller, inspired by the greatest Dutch novelist of the second half of the 20th century, Harry Mulisch. The protagonist, a student called  E.T.A. Modderman, decides to plagiarise a book by the famous author Ferdynand LeFebvre who has vanished. This is how Clausewitz is born, a magnificent display of intertextuality, pastiche and metaphors. De Vries’ second novel De republiek (2013) is also an amalgam of genres, a mix of a student novel and a spy thriller – the events are set off by the death of a professor researching Hitler. Joost de Vries will talk to writer and journalist Peeter Helme.