Everything to do with letters
A sensitive novel about being allowed to be yourself, that is Arthur Japin's new book What silence wants. He tells the tragic life story of Anna Witsen, whose career as a singer was broken in bud. Who remembers them, the nineteenth-century writers and artists who became known as the Tachtigers? Poets like Willem Kloos, Albert Verwey, Frederik van Eeden,...
Seven years after her acclaimed debut novel Muidhond, Inge Schilperoord's new book is published. She delved into the experiences of a young Dutch girl attracted to the Islamic faith. When Inge Schilperoord (49) was a forensic psychologist in 2017, she spent time providing psychological examinations at the terrorist ward of a prison, where people suspected of having ties...
Gianfranco Calligarich's second novel translated into Dutch is as impressive as his well-received previous one. In the embrace of the river is a thrilling story that grips the main characters and the reader until the last page. Only two years ago, the first Dutch translation of one of the novels by...
In his new novel When I Come Back, Italian writer Marco Balzano reveals a hidden world: that of female migrants hired by prosperous Westerners to care for their demented elderly, children and household. In Eastern Europe, there is a word for the burnout affecting millions of Eastern European domestic and care workers: 'the Italian disease'. Migration is often portrayed as...
Argentine writer Aurora Venturini was 85 when she received the Premio Nueva Novela for The Cousins, which she had submitted anonymously. She finally got the recognition she craved, with this eccentric, fascinating story with equally eccentric and fascinating characters. In The Cousins, Yuna tells of her monstrous family of 'misfits'. Yuna herself is retarded and her younger...
The night of the sweet-soft child's voice of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, of course; but also the night of Joke van Leeuwen; of Maria Farantouri and Mikis Theodorakis; of 'illusory poet' Hans Klok even; and of the families of Nisrine Mbarki and Ivo de Wijs. I will try to explain the latter in a moment, in my unpoetic style, forgive me. On my...
Fourteen years after the death of her Jewish mother, presenter Dieuwertje Blok found her war diary. With her debut Dragging Lightness, Blok pays a warm tribute to the woman who gave her life. A profession in the spotlight - Dieuwertje Blok is no stranger to it. Her grandmother Saartje, who as the daughter of fishmongers grew up in the Joden Houttuinen...
In Brengschuld, Jan Siebelink returns to his familiar Sievez family, adding a new chapter to the story of the downfall of their nursery. Ever since his biggest success novel Knielen op een bed violen, writer Jan Siebelink has regularly returned to his characters Hans and Margje Sievez, their son Ruben, and especially to their nursery in Velp. Also...
For her new novel The Taxman, Ariëlla Kornmehl did not have to look far for her inspiration. From one day to the next, she herself became a protagonist in a story, as it turned out that her tax consultant harboured a silent obsession for her. "When I read all those observations about myself, I was in shock," she says. After the publication
On 8 October 2022, ILFU will organise the Night of Poetry in Utrecht for the 39th time already. It is almost sold out which means that two-thirds of the cost is borne by visitors. "The night costs roughly 100,000 euros. If we sell out, the vast majority of the revenue already comes from tickets and about a third...
What is the difference between a translation and an adaptation? In prose and poetry, every word and comma is translated, but it is different in theatre and stage adaptations. What freedoms do director and translator dare to take when adapting Shakespeare, for instance? These questions are at the heart of the latest edition of the illustrious programme on translation and all things...
Exploring Stories is the big festival day of the International Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU), featuring more than 30 international writers and thinkers on the current and urgent themes of our time. Exploring Stories shows that literature belongs at the heart of social debate. After all, literature begins where the news ends. Anyone who wants to understand the world better cannot do without...
Poet, writer and columnist Vrouwkje Tuinman will receive this year's C.C.S. Crone Prize. This will add her name to an honourable list of Utrecht authors who received this literature prize before her, including Manon Uphoff, Arthur Japin and Maxim Februari. "The C.C.S. Crone Prize is a special appreciation for a talented writer," said culture councillor Eva Oosters. "Utrecht is known worldwide as a city of literature....
Of the 122 stage texts read by the jury of the Dutch Toneelschrijfprijs, just under 30 were written by female authors. In a field where the number of female workers is huge, this is striking. Because, the jury rightly stated, in written Dutch theatre, the male gaze is still dominant. While the theatre audience percentage-wise more women...
On 23 September, ILFU, in collaboration with Spanish art collective Luzinterruptus, will open the festival with a river of books that will fill the Minrebroederstraat in the centre of Utrecht for one day. On the same day, the 10 writers scattered across 10 districts of Utrecht in recent months for Woord900 and organisation Mooie Woorden will present their stories. Literature vs....
Sunday afternoon 25 September International Literature Festival Utrecht - TivoliVredenburg Wanderlust! On 25 September, during a programme entirely devoted to walking, Midas Dekkers, Henk Schiffmacher, Jeroen Theunissen, Marjoleine de Vos and Bente van der Wouw will talk about their irrepressible wanderlust. It will be an afternoon of walking literature, with and for walkers, nature lovers, pilgrims and reveries. The featured authors will talk about...
After the successful first edition in 2020, Asko|Schönberg presents Words & Music, a festival full of cut-ups & f*ck-ups, on 3 September. In unexpected ways, various art disciplines come together in an adventurous programme that plays with the relationships between music and language. This time, Words & Music is inspired by composer Luciano Berio (1926-2003) and literary enfant terrible of the sixties....
This summer, the ILFU Storytelling Competition will be organised for the third time. The Netherlands' only interdisciplinary storytelling competition is open to stories in all forms. Prose, films, poetry, photography, non-fiction, columns, comics, spoken word, music or TikToks: all stories are welcome. Because at ILFU, we believe good stories can be told in all kinds of ways. There are five categories to enter in...
American writer Jonathan Franzen will give a Book Talk on the opening day of the International Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU). Also present live in Utrecht will be Olivia Laing, Sharon Dodua Otoo, Ayelet Gundar Goshen, Doireann Ní Ghríofa and Tash Aw. ILFU takes place from 23 September to 8 October. Jonathan Franzen broke through internationally in 2001 with his masterpiece The Corrections, for which...
Various continents, at least three world languages and some seven centuries cover the unexpected nominations for the Filter Translation Prize 2022, which will be awarded on 28 September during the International Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU). They are all striking and exceptional achievements, according to the jury, which also scoured the world for scents and forgotten languages. And it hangs...
With a fine, precise pen, Israeli Zeruya Shalev (63) writes about human relationships. Her new novel Lot is about what binds and drives loved ones apart, and about the different faces of grief. Sentences that want to be written For some writers, a book begins with an image, a pressing question or a character that presents itself. For Zeruya Shalev, a...
This year's International Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU) will take place from 23 September to 8 October, under the motto 'fiction to the facts'. The theme ties in with the online platform ILFU launched in April, for which 856 of the intended 1,000 members have now joined. The festival kicks off on the opening weekend with the NK Poetry Slam and...
In the French-speaking world, everyone has read l'Étranger (The Foreigner) by Albert Camus. The 1942 book, which many Dutch people have also read, if only because it is nice and thin for the French reading list, tells the story of a white French resident of Algeria, a so-called pied-noir, who is so convinced of the absurdity of life that he becomes a...
Lack of roots and parental love marks a person for life, Marina Jarre shows in her autobiography Far Fathers. Well-deserved place in literature Why is Marina Jarre not considered one of the great writers of post-war Italy, except by some connoisseurs? That is what fellow writer Marta Barone wonders in the foreword to Jarre's autobiography....
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...
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