Everything to do with letters
Dolores Reyes' darkly suspenseful debut novel Earth Food will bring readers to the edge of their seats. Those who sleep badly from suspenseful films might want to avoid reading Earth Food, the penetrating debut novel by Argentine Dolores Reyes, just before bedtime. Because it is a macabre story that gets under the skin. The narrator is a girl...
Ministers of the Rutte IV cabinet will be given a list of novels that will be helpful in the performance of their duties. The list will be compiled by readers of the new online literature platform ilfu.com and a 'literary shadow cabinet' of writers who will each write an open letter to the ministers. Among others, Philip Huff, Manon Uphoff, Özcan Akyol, Ester Naomi Perquin and Abdelkader...
A hard but also sensitive novel is Like a stone in the stream by Mauro Corona (72), and a reflection of himself. On a daily basis, the Italian writer and visual artist becomes more and more like the hedgehog in his book, which eventually drops all its spines. 'I try to bring out more of the softness that is hidden somewhere inside,...
ILFU welcomes award-winning author Jennifer Egan and Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart to Utrecht on 20 May 2020 for a unique double Book Talk. Both authors published new novels in early April, each commenting on (Western) society in its own way. In doing so, the novels align with the mission of the online platform for stories that ILFU also launched in early April,...
The Netherlands got to know French-Senegalese author David Diop a few years ago with his novel More than a Brother, an impressive tale of a piece of French-colonial history, which was awarded the European Literature Prize and the International Booker Prize, among others. His well-received new novel, Journey Without Return, or the Hidden Cahiers of Michel Adanson is another important book....
Babeth Fonchi Fothchind. Remember that name, because she's going to be big, if she wasn't already, but out of my sight. Can happen, with all the bubbles and tick marks we make our way through life. Her debut collection will be released in June 2022, and then you can read it for yourself. I saw her on a Tuesday night during...
ILFU is launching 12 April an online platform for fiction that responds to current events. According to the initiators, fiction is at least as important for understanding the world as the facts we hear in the news. With contributions from writers, thinkers and poets, the platform aims to counterbalance the BNs, influencers and opinion makers that dominate the media. Writers like...
On this website (and still read here), we posted a post that we had had artificial intelligence (AI) write all the way through for fun. The post looked real, had even included some relevant-looking information from the internet and made up some names that provided quotes. Brilliant, on the one hand, but also a bit scary. Rightly made...
NBD Biblion, the world's largest online library, has announced that it is laying off all its human reviewers. Company spokesman Jonathan D'Angelo said the decision was taken to speed up the review process. "Using our new AI software, we can now review books much faster and more accurately than ever before," D'Angelo said. "So there are really no human...
The winners of the Thérèse Cornips Stipendium 2022 have been announced. Literary magazine SKUT, the Marcel Proust Association, Katrien Vandenberghe and Stichting Feest der Poëzie are this year's winners. They will each receive a sum of money to further realise their plans in the literary field. Awarded applications Nineteen applications were submitted, of which five were honoured. Of these, five will...
Great international recognition notwithstanding, Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai himself considers every novel a failure. 'I strain my brain to the limit, but it never becomes the book it should be. So I start again. And again.' Hope for redemption lost Film adaptations of his novels and winning the prestigious Man Booker International...
In 2021, 15 different Dutch thriller authors reached the top 10 suspense bestseller list. That is more than in previous years. A favourable development for the Dutch thriller. The market share of Dutch authors in the thriller market (suspense book minus fantasy and true crime) was 21% in 2021. This is according to research by research agency KVB-SMK/Gfk commissioned by the...
A childhood in which nothing happens and which is as desolate as it is lonely. You would think that would hardly provide material for a book, but Dolores Prato (1892-1983) proved otherwise. Her autobiographical novel There in the Square is Nobody, roughly 800 pages thick, was published in a very much abridged version over 40 years ago. Prato, then already very elderly, was...
Snow, Dog, Foot is the great title of the first book translated into Dutch by Claudio Morandini, published by Koppernik, a publisher specialising in literary gems. The novel, which was already published in Italy in 2015 and received rave reviews, is set in the region where the author lives, the Valle d'Aosta. Main character Andelmo Farandola...
Dear Library South-Kennemerland, I would like to apply for the position of 'Culture & Social Domain Programme Manager' that you published on the 'Cultural Vacancies' website. You see, I am a huge supporter of the idea that a library should associate itself with books as little as possible. After all, the clouds of dust are already smelling you up. Of course, you also knew all along that a bookcase...
Houses, monuments, shops and streets were wiped off the map. Nearly three hundred people died under the rubble. Franco Faggiani (73) wrote a gripping book about the earthquake that hit central Italy five years ago: Sometimes I'd like to be the wind. Success Whenever possible, Franco Faggiani treks into the northern Italian mountains. Once again, he finds himself in the Piedmontese...
Five years ago, Rome was rocked by a brutal, bloody murder. Under the influence of cocaine and alcohol, two near-thirties murdered for no reason a young man they did not know. Writer and journalist Nicola Lagioia, like many other compatriots, was gripped by the case. 'This is not just a story about a murder, but above all about loneliness.' Manuel Foffo and...
In the third episode of the podcast KunstZINnig, journalist Jasmijn Huisman talks to Amsterdam city poet Gershwin Bonevacia about how poetry gives meaning to his life: 'There is always a fire inside me that I cannot deny. I didn't make the choice to write, I just can't do anything else.' Gershwin Bonevacia is...
She could barely tell a sparrow from a wren, and almost gave up bird watching. But now writer Nicolien Mizee effortlessly recognises a barred siskin or a dipper. Nicolien Mizee's Bird Book is meant to encourage laymen like herself. 'You just experience so much more of your surroundings.' How romantic: the wild swan brought writer Nicolien Mizee and her husband Rob...
It is perhaps his most ambitious novel to date, and at the same time the first he would rather not talk about. For in De Mitsukoshi Troostbaby Company, writer Auke Hulst (46) broaches a sensitive and personal theme: mourning for an unborn child. Near future The Mitsukoshi Troostbaby Company is a novel as only Auke Hulst writes it....
Teun Toebes (22) shares kitchen, bathroom and toilet not with fellow students but with people with dementia. He wrote a book about it: VerpleegThuis. The book came in at number 1 in the Bestseller 60 last week, much to his delight, because Toebes wants to reach as many people as possible with his mission: to change care for people with a faltering brain. 'It...
As a physicist, Paolo Giordano was deeply concerned about the development of Covid-19. As a writer, he could interpret those feelings of concern and share them with the public. Giordano's articles are collected in What I Don't Want to Forget. 'It would be a sin if all this suffering and all these deaths were in vain.' Aware of the danger When he...
For RTL-Boulevard reporter Ruud ten Wolde (29), these weeks would be dominated by his book Ill Happy, which comes in at number 1 in the Bestseller 60 this week, in which he writes about his illness and the insights it has brought him. Although he had been ill for six years, he still died suddenly recently. We spoke to him five...
'And then I had to recognise that too: that you cannot live, cannot grow, without experiencing a wrong friendship.' That is the conclusion drawn by Elisa, the protagonist of Silvia Avallone's new novel A Friendship. Many people will probably recognise it, that attraction to a friend or girlfriend who is not actually right for you or right for you, but...
A light-hearted and delicate little book on yoga is what French author Emmanuel Carrère intends to write. By this, he does not mean the glorified form of gymnastics that so many practise, no, he is talking about the sacred yoga that leads to calming the mind, to serenity and pure perception of what is. Al also goes after...
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