Everything to do with letters
Don't let the numbers fool you. Sales figures and print runs of poetry collections say absolutely nothing about the popularity of poetry in the Netherlands. This is not only clear from research. You can also conclude it simply from the fact that there is a Night of Poetry in the Netherlands. So on Saturday, 16 September, this phenomenon turned 35. Of the recent editions...
We like to be touched, we Dutch. And if we are not touched ourselves, we want to touch others. These are the two main reasons why people seek out poetry. This memorable fact has come to light thanks to research by Utrecht scientist Kila van der Starre. She will soon receive her PhD on a quantitative study into...
On 11 September 1985, the biggest train disaster in Portuguese history took place. Near Alcafache, an international express train collided with a local barge. Nothing was ever recovered from dozens of passengers. They were totally charred in the scorching inferno. Portuguese writer João Ricardo Pedro, in his stunning novel Underway, reconstructs how one of those missing people ended up in that place where...
Art has been utterly politicised. It has been creeping, and faster than I thought. Artists now make political speeches, conduct rounds of public participation in the service of lobbying organisations. They discuss identity instead of telling the stories that take us beyond the delusion of the day. That cultural funds are now gently starting to talk about social connection too,...
A cellist with high hopes but no work left for Italy. His book Fratello & Sorella is now released. From Amsterdam Who French. You wondered if things would ever work out with him. The answer is yes. Yet the charming and nervous young man managed to skim along the edges in the 1990s. Then shared...
Last month, RTL investigated how badly libraries in the Netherlands were doing. An article on this site then made it clear that writers are more than necessary victims of this. Indeed, by moving library collections to schools, libraries would escape the obligation to pay a fee (the so-called 'lending right'). This, of course, called for a...
Claron McFadden is a phenomenon. Josse de Pauw is a phenomenon. Arnon Grunberg is a phenomenon. LOD is a phenomenon. KVS is a phenomenon. Theatre Festival Boulevard is a phenomenon. I did not yet know pianist Kris Defoort, but he is also a phenomenon. As is Henry Purcell, but we've known that for a couple of centuries: also a phenomenon. After such an opening paragraph...
That libraries are doing badly was already known. But in the news about this, made public on 27 July by RTL, there is still something hidden that the editors themselves leave underexposed. Because who is paying the real price in the austerity operation? Indeed, the writers. The libraries settle that with a simple trick. They cancel the rent from their own...
An Arts Festival has taken place in an insignificant corner of West Flanders every summer since 1980. It smells like hops and a growing number of visitors come from the Netherlands. What is Watou's secret? How on earth does a hole of 2,000 inhabitants, which barely appears on your car navigation, end up with an Kunstenfestival that rules the village for two whole summer months every year?....
I have read the best management book ever! It was also my first and I don't think I'll be reading a second one anytime soon. But what a book, The Corporate Tribe. Maybe it should have a 'Definitely not just for managers' sticker next to the 'Management Book of the Year 2016' sticker. It is a treat for anyone who works with other people...
He is a tormented, loner and contrarian fellow, but also one of the best detectives the Oslo police force has to offer. And: a much-loved character. Harry Hole is back, in Jo Nesbø's new thriller The Thirst. If the interview could be a few hours later, as he is suffering from jet lag. Popular Norwegian bestselling author Jo...
On Wednesday 21 June, the Zilveren Griffels, Zilveren Penselen en Paletten and Vlag en Wimpels will be awarded - the prelude to the presentation of Het Gouden Penseel and Het Gulden Palet in September and the Gouden Griffel in October. Interview with last year's Golden Griffel winner Anna Woltz on writing, growing up and the Griffels, of course. By Tijmen...
Later, when I grow up... Lawyer Susan van 't Hullenaar (1970) always dreamed of becoming a writer. As her 12.5-year work anniversary approached, she realised: I have to take the plunge now, otherwise it won't happen. She quit her job, became her own boss as a copywriter and picked up her pen - well, the computer. 'I gave...
A Quattro Mani's pop-up reviewer Afke Bohle took up the challenge of reading a book with her eldest son. After the first volume in Susan van 't Hullenaar's De Groene Hand series, the second soon followed. And what was her surprise: now the wait for part three is actually taking too long... My youngest son loves books, but...
Culture Press is an indispensable addition to the cultural news in your newspaper, on the internet or on TV. Independent, quirky, rebellious and above all: useful. After all, there is already enough nonsense about art. You'll understand that we don't serve the millions of readers that the big publishers and their advertisers exist on. Which is why everyone else does so little about art....
The novel Her Name was Sarah (nine million copies sold) made Tatiana de Rosnay world-famous. In Paris, she even wears a wig when she does not want to be recognised. That she struggled with anorexia she kept secret for years. [bol_product_links block_id=”bol_592be29ab4765_selected-products” products=”9200000075700087,1001004010207707,9200000077515228,9200000011255053″ name="a4m" sub_id="de rosnay" link_color="003399″ subtitle_color="000000″ pricetype_color="000000″ price_color="CC3300″ deliverytime_color="009900″ background_color="FFFFFF" border_color="D2D2D2″ width="549″ cols="2″ show_bol_logo="0″ show_price="1″ show_rating="1″ show_deliverytime="1″ link_target="1″ image_size="1″ admin_preview="1″] Eight life questions...
In the 1980s, when I played teacher in Curaçao for a few years, a shiver of admiration and trepidation swept through the island's intellectual upper crust. Double Play appeared, the now classic Curaçao novel by Frank Martinus Arion. It was a hit. Gerrit Komrij loved the novel. [bol_product_links block_id="bol_5924039b33ad6_selected-products" products="9200000057138048,9200000005225011″ name="harri" sub_id="arion" link_color="003399″ subtitle_color="000000″ pricetype_color="000000″ price_color="CC3300″ deliverytime_color="009900″...
Writer and television presenter Arjen Lubach has been a fan of Norwegian writer Johan Harstad for years, whose mega-thick Max, Micha & the Tet Offensive has just been published in Dutch. He even visited him in Norway. Lubach: 'I was afraid we were so much alike that we had nothing to say to each other.' That turned out to be giant. Logical, then, that he...
And then there turns out to be a festival theme after all. Comes all by itself. Perhaps not thought of beforehand by the management of the International Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU), but after three days of immersion crystal clear. Writing is about that about which we do not speak. During the last festival night, Saturday 13 May, I immersed myself for the occasion in a section that allows 'Utrecht' to...
Whereas at last year's IlFU you were tucked away airtight in the hermetic halls of the former post office on Utrecht's Neude, the expansive view of Tivoli/Vredenburg is a breath of fresh air. It seems to loosen everyone up a bit. The result is more humour and better conversations on the roof of the world. Voskuil's Office does not birthday....
Good timing by the International Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU) to put China at the centre of this year's edition. Just in time before the Chinese have connected the Betuwelijn to their own railway network on their own initiative, with their well-known decisiveness. High time to get to know the Chinese soul, it seems to me, and that does not succeed immediately....
Dutch, ladies and gentlemen, is just about the most difficult language in the world, and any committee that wants to improve it only makes it worse. As a professional language user, I have thought so for years, and it has now been happily confirmed by people who really know about it: translators. The first day of the International Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU)...
Of course: Hugo Borst, Suzanne Vega, Herman Koch. Enough reason to travel to Utrecht between 11 and 13 May. But there is much more to experience at the International Literature Festival Utrecht. And it doesn't even always have to do with books. I will show you a few things I am definitely looking forward to in festival palace TivoliVredenburg. The...
'Stop it. The fewer awards people give each other, the better.' Ingmar Heytze, poet, is clear: 'Within every conceivable genre, there are already big enough prizes. If you ask me, they should restrict that Nobel Prize to science from now on.' So on the final evening of the International Literature Festival in Utrecht (ILFU) next Saturday, it will be all about those...
Bark Skins Annie Proulx We had to gather some courage to start Annie Proulx's Bark Skins. After all, the book is 800 pages long, so you have to make some time for it. But this novel is well worth that. As a reader, you are unceremoniously planted in the wild forest of North America, still called New France in the late seventeenth century....
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