Four years ago at the Winternachten Festival in The Hague, we spoke about it with Egyptian writer Alaa al Aswani, who was disarmingly upbeat despite the fact that he can barely publish in his own country. On lack of freedom of expression and fiction in times of fake, this year's theme, Al Aswani could have a word. 'Freedom of expression is even worse now than under dictator Mubarak.'
Jules Deelder instilled in me a love of poetry. He was there when I was in need of something other than the big-people poems that weren't about me, as a would-be punk. That was almost forty years ago now. He's just died, and heaven is also going jazz-ish. Last night, while the night mayor of Rotterdam...
Alí Calderón has written quite a body of work, but I didn't hear much of it during my stay at Poetry International. However, the poem 'Democracia Mexicana' did come along three times. A formidable poem, as it ends with a rotting baby corpse, so not for the soft-hearted among us. Democracia Mexicana is Calderon's hit poem. Like pop singers can make a hit...
This post has been updated following a response from VVD The Hague. Yesterday I wrote: But so that was misunderstood. Today the VVD called. A transcript of the conversation can be found below: With Frans Schuyt fraction chairman The Hague VVD. I think two things have been mixed up. You have the programme in the budget, Culture and Library, of 102 million,...
She is 14, heavily veiled and bespectacled, with a voice that can be heard in the farthest corners of The Hague. She wants to be a surgeon but first she wins the preliminary round of the school competition for young poets at Winternachten. What anger there is in that person. What maturity sounds from her cry...
Leïla Slimani, the Moroccan-French author whose novel A Soft Hand won the prestigious Prix Goncourt, has cancelled at the eleventh hour for Winternachten. The reason was not Thursday's storm. THE reason was personal. But could also be due to something else. The chief guest of the International Literary Festival in The Hague, Alain Mabanckou,...
'Writing and reading, like sex, are a form of fusion. Literature is the practice of impurity'. Pakistani-American author Mohsin Hamid can formulate. In his Free the Word speech at the opening of Winternachten in The Hague, the man, who wrote an international bestseller with The Fall of a Fundamentalist, made a case for impurity. 'Purity,' he told the...
The best performers are a few heads taller on stage than in real life. This also applies to Carmien Michels. I knew the writer, performer, slam poet and jack-of-all-trades in cultural life mostly from her legendary performances at the 2016 NK Poetry Slam and the Night of Poetry in September 2017. Radiance and presence, which...
In the 1970s, a wave of terror swept through Europe. A wave that claimed far more victims in our regions than the Islamic violence to date. During literature festival Winternachten, from 18 to 22 January in The Hague, it is about the struggle for freedom, about us against them. On Saturday afternoon 21 January, Frank Westerman and Mohsin Hamid will discuss the...
From 18 January, The Hague will be all about Winternachten. We think this is the most fun literature festival in the west of the Netherlands. This year, it is about Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood, the motto of the French Revolution, among other things. But also about Karl Marx. Under the motto 'we the people', Winternachten is therefore about populism and secession,...
During the upcoming edition of Writers Unlimited/Winternachten in The Hague, two writers who are making exciting news with their work and their success will drop by. Fatma Aydemir, journalist from Berlin, wrote with 'Ellebogen' an abrasive debut about a Turkish girl who is a bit less prepared for her future than everyone would like. Parisian author Leila Slimani won in...
Earlier this year, Mircea Cărtărescu, Romania's greatest writer, was a guest at the Winternachten festival. Writer Mira Feticu, who was born and grew up in Romania and even received lectures from Cărtărescu as a student, interviewed her former compatriot and professor for A Quattro Mani. A beautiful conversation about their homeland, truth, literature and poetry. 'My books are...
'In schools, you have to feed children literature like they feed geese in France.' With his witty remarks, Tommy Wieringa got the laughs as he lay on the sofa as the personification of the Netherlands with psychiatry professor Damiaan Denys. 'The Netherlands on the sofa' was one of the first programmes of the Saturday evening literary festival Winternachten in...
During the Winternachten festival this Saturday, seven writers shared their story about their 'Secret City'. Mircea Cartarescu, Rodigro Hasbún, Hanna Bervoets, Piotr Ibrahim Kalwas, Olga Grjasnowa, Maarten van der Graaff and Salena Godden wrote about the city they don't see when they walk out the door, but encounter once in a while, suddenly, unexpectedly. They wrote fiction, or stayed closer...
In 'My Secret City' on Saturday at the Winternachten festival, seven writers recited a story about 'their own hidden city': Mircea Cartarescu, Rodigro Hasbún, Hanna Bervoets, Piotr Ibrahim Kalwas, Olga Grjasnowa, Maarten van der Graaff and Salena Godden wrote about the city they don't see when they walk out the door, but encounter occasionally and unexpectedly. In fiction,...
Whether the end of communism and beginning of capitalism influenced his writing? Mircea Cartarescu, one of Romania's greatest writers, parried the question with a joke. 'That is far too small an event to change my style and novels.' Is this the real life? That is the theme of the literary festival Winternachten this...
It was a beautiful and disarming lecture by Australian-Dutch writer Michel Faber, yesterday at the Friday Night Unlimited of the literary festival Winternachten, in his hometown The Hague. His lecture was on 'Fiction in times of fake'. 'Before I start making lofty statements about literature and what literature is capable of in today's world, I want to be open with...
Writers Unlimited could hardly have chosen a more appropriate theme for this year's literary festival Winternachten: Is this the real life? That question will be on many a mind when the new president of the United States is inaugurated on Friday. Fortunately, some eighty writers who do have something meaningful to say about the state of...
International literary festival Winternachten wants to involve the public more in its programmes next year. 'Audiences increasingly want to have a say,' says director Ton van de Langkruis. 'That can be done in all kinds of ways, we are now brooding on that.' Winternachten attracted some 7300 visitors this year, equalling last year's attendance. Last edition's theme was 'Hello Darkness', and...
The last bit is always the most exciting. After a nice conversation with festival presenter Francis Broekhuizen, chief guest Susan Neiman suddenly joined us. It was nearing twelve, quite a bit of wine had actually already been poured into presenter and guest, but still. Suddenly you find yourself talking to a great philosopher and writer about David Bowie. This was the last session at Winternachten....
Next time, there will be 10 people queuing for a hotseat, 100 online viewers and dozens of live spectators in the foyer. At least I hope so, because only then will experimenting with new forms, apps and devices make sense, of course. At the second Winternachten night, Saturday 16 January at the Theater aan het Spui, we had slightly fewer viewers than...
Lots of audience and wonderful stories made the Saturday of the literary festival Winternachten a party. For the visit of Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgård in the afternoon, queues stretched from the auditorium to the front door of the Theater aan het Spui. The festival's evening programming was also well attended. While American-German philosopher Susan Neiman spoke in...
On Friday 15 January, we conducted a first experiment with the platform 'blab.im'. During festival Winternachten, we reported live, via the internet. We did so in English, because most of the viewers we had were English-speaking. We could see that. That is already the most striking difference between something like Blab.im, and ordinary television. Blab.im in the Netherlands is still...
Literature is not a means to bring about political change, but to change people. That is exactly what he aims for with his books, Egyptian writer Alaa al Aswani said yesterday at Winternachten, where his new novel The Automobile Club of Cairo was presented. That is probably how visitors to the literary festival at the end of the evening also came to...
Three and a half hours of streaming video from a seating area at The Hague's Winternachten festival. I won't blame you if you didn't follow everything. I wasn't quite there myself at the end. Still, it was a success. If only because it hasn't been done here in the country before. Blab is so new that...
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