The Hormone Factory

From the throes of his death bed, Dutch pharmaceutical entrepreneur and megalomaniac Mordecai de Paauw reflects on his life as the co-founder and CEO of Farmacon: the first company to standardize and distribute the contraceptive pill worldwide. With the future of his family business threatened by Hitler's precipitous rise to power and his sexual exploitation of the factory's women soon to be exposed, he struggles to keep his vision afloat, forcing him to choose between his own misguided impulses and his ethically minded Jewish family.

An incisive psychological portrait of the inseparable bond between ruthlessness and unbridled capitalism, THE HORMONE FACTORY weaves questions of scientific integrity, sibling rivalry, and sex into a narrative that is as troubling as it is illuminating.

Saskia Goldschmidt was born in 1954 in The Netherlands. A drama teacher and children's theater director for 25 years, THE HORMONE FACTORY is her first novel. She lives in Amsterdam.

Hester Velmans is a novelist, editor, and translator of French and Dutch literary fiction. Born in The Netherlands, she grew up in Switzerland and earned a BA in English and a Master's in Literature from London University (King's). Her translation of Lulu Wang's The Lily Theater was a NY Times Notable Book of the Year, and she was awarded the Vondel Prize for Translation for her rendition of Renate Dorrestein's A Heart of Stone. She lives in Massachusetts. The author lives in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.