Bertien van Manen grew up in Heerlen, the centre of the eastern part of the former Dutch coal mining region, where her father worked as an engineer for the State Mines. This publication brings together photographs Bertien van Manen made in different mining towns: Wakefield and New Sharlston, Yorkshire (UK, 1970s), Most (CZ, 1980s), the Appalachian Mountains (US, 1980-1990s), and Apanas, Siberia (RU, 1990 s).
For this book, author Marcia Luyten (Het Geluk van Limburg, 2018) wrote a particularly personal portrait of Bertien, aptly expressing her childhood and her relationship to Heerlen and miners' life. The book Gluckauf is published in collaboration with Fw: Books and distributed by Ideabooks. The publication is also available in the museum shop at SCHUNCK.