Written with dramatic verve and cinematic-literary flair.  — Trouw

A dazzling, monumental double biography. — de Volkskrant

For over a quarter of a century, Van der Zijl has known how to tell a story […] a grandiose composition. —HP De Tijd

The Floating World is the immersive dual biography of an exceptional father and his equally remarkable daughter. Following in their footsteps, it is also a chronicle of ancient Japan and a story of the profound influence this lost civilization has had on Western culture — even to this day.

In 1823, a young German physician named Franz von Siebold set out for Deshima, the Dutch trading post in Japan, which at the time remained completely closed off from the outside world. Seven years later, he was banished from the land of the shoguns — and from the lives of his great loves: the concubine Sonogi and their daughter Oine. For decades, father and daughter did everything in their power to be reunited. Still hoping to return, Franz established his reputation as the world’s foremost expert on Japan; inspired by her father’s example, Oine Kusumoto became the first female physician in her country. But when Japan finally opened its doors in 1854 and they were at last able to embrace again, their reunion turned out to be nothing like they had imagined.