'Do you not agree with me that many of you - like members of Roman Catholic curia - are already trying to make yourselves immortal and indispensable? That you are suffering from severe mental and spiritual petrification?' Kees 't Hart measured up to a papal role on Sunday 18 January, when pronouncing The State of Dutch Literature, a tradition at the presentation of the Jan Campert Prizes in The Hague, with which Writers Unlimited concludes each year.
His speech may be partly a humorous and, in it, highly successful satirical pinprick, but it would have been less amusing if he were not also somewhat right: the world of Dutch literature has been better off in the past. 't Hart therefore called on the assembled publishers, booksellers and writers to change course: 'Literature flourishes, but only if you want it to,' the author told his audience. 'In bookshops, too, you see increasing specialisation and small scale. There is more focus on readers, people are organising their own readership.'
't Hart is hopeful, which is refreshing. After all: there are still very many writers and especially publishers who see 'The Internet' as an outside threat, and so remain blind to the fact that they might also have been able to adapt their product to the new circumstances: content, price, form, technology. Too many things have remained the same. That Kees 't Hart, himself eminence grise, makes this appeal, cannot help but give hope to all those who care about the written word.
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