Available Formats
We Had To Remove This Post
By (Author) Hanna Bervoets
Translated by Emma Rault
Pan Macmillan
Picador
31st October 2023
1st June 2023
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Fiction in translation
Narrative theme: Social issues
Narrative theme: Interior life
Violence and abuse in society
Digital and information technologies: social and ethical aspects
Impact of science and technology on society
839.3137
Paperback
144
Width 130mm, Height 197mm, Spine 14mm
110g
DOES WHAT YOU SEE CHANGE WHO YOU ARE Kayleigh is broke. Out of options, she takes a job as a content moderator, reviewing horrors and hate online and deciding which posts needs to be removed. Kayleigh is good at her job, and in her colleagues she finds a group of friends, even a new girlfriend. For the first time in her life, the future seems bright . . . But soon the job begins to shift Kayleigh's world in alarming ways. In the glare of the screen, how long can Kayleigh hold on to her humanity We Had To Remove This Post is translated from the Dutch by Emma Rault. 'A superbly poised, psychologically astute and subtle novel of mental unravelling' - Ian McEwan, author of Atonement 'This novel gives us an acid glimpse into a new form of labor existing today . . . Fascinating and disturbing' - Ling Ma, author of Severance
The dank underside of social media, its cruelty and delusions, have become, our shared affliction. It needed an accomplished novelist to explore humanely the damage. Hanna Bervoets has richly obliged in this superbly poised, psychologically astute and subtle novel of mental unravelling. -- Ian McEwan, author of Atonement, On Chesil Beach and Amsterdam
This novel gives us an acid glimpse into a new form of labor existing today, a job that extracts an immeasurable psychic toll. Fascinating and disturbing. -- Ling Ma, author of Severance
We Had To Remove This Post is one of the most fascinating books Ive read in years. -- Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things and With Teeth
I thought it was incredible and has real cult potential. -- Alice Slater * TikTok *
A discomfiting mystery about the disturbing parts of social media that most people never see * New York Times *
Powerful, discussable, and a harbinger of a voice-in-translation to watch. * Booklist Starred Review *
Scathing, darkly humorous exploration of the impact of VR, IR . . . Bervoets just gets it. This is, unironically, a novel for our time. * Kirkus Starred Review *
Hanna Bervoet's slim, compelling novel We Had to Remove This Post addresses the foetid morass of social media . . . Bevoets is often acidly funny, especially when demonstraring the workers' mordant, jockish humour. * TLS *
Hanna Bervoets is one of the most acclaimed Dutch writers of her generation. She is the author of several novels in her home country of the Netherlands, and she has also written screenplays, plays, short stories, and essays. She is the recipient of many literary awards, including the prestigious Frans Kellendonk Prize for her entire body of work. She was a resident at Art Omi: Writers at Ledig House, New York, and currently works and lives in Amsterdam with her girlfriend and two guinea pigs. We Had to Remove This Post has been translated into thirteen languages and is her first book to be translated into English.