Všechny Louisovy děti – Baluk Kamil (2019)

The meaning of the word family has radically changed in recent years. What does it mean to be a father? And what does it mean to be a child? What is it like in adulthood to discover that you have a number of siblings who were previously unknown to you? Polish reporter Kamil Bałuk decided to solve an ancient mystery in his book All of Louis's Children. In the 1980s, children were born in the Netherlands whose skin was somewhat darker than originally planned. The reason lies in the peculiar practices carried out by Dr. Jan Karbaat at one of the assisted reproduction clinics. It turns out that one donor was not quite what the clients had wished for. He was indeed Dutch, but originally from Suriname, and he was an employee of a bank, not as a manager, but just as a regular employee. And this man became the father of more than two hundred children. One of them is also twenty-five-year-old Bjorn, who one day says, 'I will find them all...' An extraordinary book about what it means to be a parent and a child today, about what it is like to have two hundred siblings in a small country, but also about a man who wanted to become a god. A beautiful story about the most fragile things in the world – human relationships.