Richard Foster

Where have all the ravers gone? Following his debut, Flower Factory, Richard Foster presents a new batch of psychedelicized, autofictive fairy tales from the Netherlands. The Punk Rock Birdwatching Club introduces a diverse cast of voices - from addicts to grandmothers - who narrate eight stories dealing with the major social changes that country underwent during the mid-noughties. We learn of the upheavals brought on by the Euro and the influx of Polish workers alongside the slow disappearance of the British and Irish worker-raver tribes post-Schengen, all set against a backdrop of rising costs, political murders and foreign wars. We also learn of the shock of new party snacks, like asparagus sticks wrapped in ham. Like Flower Factory, The Punk Rock Birdwatching Club is set in the southern part of the Dutch Bollenstreek: an agro-industrial district that is always changing, but somehow manages to stay exactly the same.