It came anything but naturally, writing his collection of short stories The Pier Collapses. Mark Haddon, made famous with The Miraculous Incident with the Dog in the Night, novels come a lot easier. 'I've been trying to write short stories for a long time, and I knew I should be capable of it, but I never succeeded. It was like a...
She is small and petite, but as militant as a (Tamil) tiger. Indian writer Meena Kandasamy (1984) prefers to break with all conventions, and the word is her weapon. No Bollywood Anyone who thinks, based on the cover and the author's name, that The Gypsy Goddess is a sweet 'Bollywood novel' will be deceived. Meena Kandasamy's novel is about a true-life...
In his recent collection Achter het verdwijnpunt, death plays an important role. Poet Frans Budé lost no fewer than four poet friends in a short time and honoured them in verse. The 70-year-old poet himself still writes as avidly as in his younger years: in addition to an occasional collection on the Maas, to be published in May, he wrote poems for the upcoming exhibition...
They still exist. Writers who find it hard enough to write a book, and so are happy to leave all the rest to a publisher. They may complain afterwards about poor marketing, minimal payment and guidance, but have no idea how they could do it differently. Fortunately, it is becoming increasingly easy to do things differently...
Writing cost him his marriage, he is being shadowed by the secret service and risks being arrested in Angola. But José Eduardo Agualusa, who has a chance of winning the 2016 Man Booker International Prize with his new novel A General Theory of Forgetting, does not hesitate to put down his pen. 'I won't let myself...
Is there any reason to buy the magazine 'Boekman 106′? For me, yes, although I should immediately throw a magazine that claims to be the Dutch forum for art, culture and policy into the dustbin for displayed arrogance. After all, with a circulation of only 1400 copies, and appearing four times a year, how can you give yourself such a...
There is one thing almost as much fun as going to see a play. According to some, it is even more fun than going to see a play: reading a play yourself. And then not by yourself, but with a few others. That you divide the roles and start reading aloud. With a cup of tea, coffee or a glass of wine on the side....
Last spring, while looking at Catinka Kersten's newly installed sculpture on the patio of museum Beelden aan Zee, Iris Le Rütte's sculpture Daphne caught my eye. A woman who instead of a head and arms stretched branches to the sky. It is a scene from Ovid's Metamorphoses: the nymph Daphne, on the...
With the completion of the trilogy A Story of Love, Illness and Death, about the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, a heavy burden fell from his heart for Swedish writer Jonas Gardell. As one of the few in his circle of friends, he escaped the dance of death. Pure luck, he says. 'I slept with death.' Also, the last...
It is a lovely summer book: Harem, the new novel by Ronald Giphart. And for the first time in years, a good dose of sex appears in a book by the Utrecht-based writer. 'Just the other day at a reading I was announced by a librarian: "Ladies and gentlemen, here is the man who knows all about sex!" Interview so with...
It was dubbed 'the art heist of the century': the theft of seven famous paintings from the Kunsthal three years ago. The perpetrators turned out to be four Romanians with no clue about art. Writer Mira Feticu, originally Romanian, wrote a novel about it. Seven important paintings were stolen from the Kunsthal: a Van Gogh, a Picasso, two rare works by...
Three years ago, the suspicion was already expressed in America, now it is also penetrating Europe. People are reading far more than bookshops and publishers think. And this is not even due to the illegal downloading of bestsellers that everyone is so worried about. Logical, because what people are reading so fanatically is not the book you buy in a bookshop,...
There was once a celebrity (pianist, composer and conductor Reinbert de Leeuw), a biographer (Thea Derks) and a riot. De Leeuw was against the publication of his biography Reinbert de Leeuw: man or melody and made no secret of it. In the TV programme Zomergasten (Summer guests), he even dismissed the dissertation-like standard work as an almost endearing puff piece. Meanwhile...
American-Italian voice artist Cathy Berberian (1925-1983) has gone down in history as 'the wife of Luciano Berio', the Italian composer with whom she realised such high-profile pieces as Circles, Sequenza III, Recital I for Cathy and Thema, Omaggio a Joyce. Yet they were married for only 14 years, from 1950 to 1964. Moreover, it is widely known that she had a large compositional share
For most artists, it is an ideal. Being represented by a gallery. Writers have their sights set on a contract with a publisher. Musicians eye labels eagerly and theatre-makers queue up for an impresario. Creators have a love-hate relationship with such intermediaries. Because while the average creative professional would be willing to spare a toe in exchange...
In the first half of the 20th century, dance did not represent much in the Netherlands. There was some interest, but it exclusively concerned classical ballet. The successful dance performances all came from abroad.
It has all but disappeared from the history books that a remarkably creative and original dancer and choreographer settled in our country during those years: Gertrud Leistikow (1885 - 1948).
For the umpteenth time in its more than 30 years of existence, the colourful Concertzender going down. That is why there will be a benefit concert at the Amstelkerk in Amsterdam. Greats like Liza Ferschtman, Yuri Honing, Erik Bosgraaf and the Ragazze Quartet will perform for free, to support the station that broadcasts so many live recordings of their concerts. I myself started my career as a radio producer there in 1995, so I would say: come all, and donate generous! For less than two tonnes a year, the station will stay on air.
It may be a crisis and the cultural winds may also be blowing from the wrong right corner, but that doesn't stop The Dodo from flying. The festival day newspaper we launched two years ago as a new commercial product is ready for another 10 days of Springdance. We're going to review a lot of performances, and compare even more. And we're going to make a journal. It...
Brazil has 10% more every year for arts, sports and entertainment, plus an extra 600 million this year. If we in the Netherlands ever start growing the economy again, we can choose between the Chinese and Brazilian models. In China, growth goes mainly to puissant wealthy entrepreneurs, and wealthier citizens buy mass-produced luxury goods. For...
Interesting things are happening these days. The digital revolution is beginning to have traces of a real revolution. No one has yet set themselves on fire, as in Tunisia, but more and more people are taking to the virtual streets to overthrow the old powers: after the record companies, which let themselves be overwhelmed by people downloading, and the newspapers, which let themselves be overwhelmed by people searching freely for information, it now seems to be the turn of book publishers.
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