It is 1941, and Antwerp is in the grip of Nazi occupation. Young policeman Wilfried Wils has no intention of being a hero - but war has a way of catching up with people.
It is 1941, and Antwerp is in the grip of Nazi occupation. Wilfried Wils, novice policeman and frustrated writer, has no intention of being a hero. He just wants to keep his head down; to pretend the fear and violence around him aren't happening.
But war has a way of catching up with people. When his idealistic best friend draws him into the growing resistance movement, and an SS commander tries to force him into betraying his fellow policemen, Wilfried's loyalties become horribly, fatally torn. Should he comply, or fight back? As the beatings, destruction and round-ups intensify across the city, he is forced into an act that will shatter his life and, years later, have consequences he could never have imagined.
A searing portrayal of a man trying to survive amid the treachery, compromises and moral darkness of occupation, Will asks what any of us would do to stay alive.
"A brilliant, uncomfortable exploration of the moral compromises necessary to live alongside evil"
-- The Times, Historical Fiction Book of the Year"Constantly grapples with what the ordinary man might do when faced with a horror so huge that to resist might threaten his very survival. Olyslaegers bravely explores moral compromise, betrayal and collaboration - and throws our polarised times into sharp relief."
-- The Observer"A vital and endlessly frightening question: under the cosh of an occupier, who among us would actually risk our lives or livelihoods for the sake of principle, or a fellow citizen?
" -- The Guardian "I loved this book.
Will is a vivid, complex, and captivating novel about the grubby moral compromises of life under occupation"
-- Bart van Es, author of The Cut Out Girl"A masterful book, a gripping epic, necessary and gorgeously written."
-- Stefan Hertmans, author of War and Turpentine
