From Holland and Flanders
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no. 19-1 10 Booksprings 2010 from Holland and Flanders Yasmine Allas Laia Fàbregas Tom Lanoye Peter Terrin Franca Treur Carolina Trujillo Sana Valiulina Annelies Verbeke Pieter Waterdrinker Christiaan Weijts 2 Re-imagining the past Yasmine Allas A Handed-Down History t a young age, the writer Yasmine A23Allas fled Somalia after her father was murdered during the civil war. For years she sought a way to return to the city where she photo Wim van de Hulst grew up, until one day she was approached about making a television documentary about Yasmine Allas (born in 1967) arrived in the her youth. When she arrived in Africa, she Netherlands in 1987. She attended drama found that everything had changed beyond school, acted with various companies, and recognition; the landscape was ravaged and performed her own solo show. In 1998, she the population had moved away. She realized made her writing debut with the successful that it was impossible to revive the past if you novel, Idil, een meisje (Idil, A Girl). Her were continually escorted by a camera team. second novel, De generaal met de zes vingers There was only one option: to use her imagina- (The General with Six Fingers), 2001, was tion. And this is exactly what she has done in also highly acclaimed. In 2004, De blauwe this extraordinary and original novel. kamer (The Blue Room) was published, The story centres around a love affair between the young nurse, Zeyneb, followed by an essay collection entitled, and a wounded soldier whom she refers to as the ‘Stranger’. On the day he is Ontheemd en toch thuis (Uprooted but Still discharged from hospital, he asks her to marry him and promises to come Home), 2006, on coping with Dutch culture back for her when he is physically strong enough to do so. Much later, after and her own background and beliefs. Een Zeyneb has been promised by her father to another man, she is standing on nagelaten verhaal (A Handed-Down History), the veranda when she sees a land rover entering the square. It is the Stranger. her fourth novel, has also been very well His arrival presents her with a difficult dilemma: either obey her father or fol- received and has been reprinted several low her heart and run away with the Stranger. times since its recent publication. This story is narrated years afterwards by their only daughter, a writer who has been living in the Netherlands for decades and returns to her land of birth to make a television documentary. She has great expectations of the reunion, but there is no one there who knows her and no one she knows. She is not The powerful and unsentimental quest of a even accepted as a fellow Somalian and it is clear that she does not belong sensitive woman seeking herself and her position there, she is not welcome. The daughter becomes acquainted with an old man in life. de telegraaf who secretly takes her to her birthplace. There she pictures herself sitting on the garden swing in bygone days, she reflects on her parents’ marriage and A poetic parable. Strong and delicate in equal the fate of her father, who was dragged out of the house by soldiers on that measure. de volkskrant ominous day, never to return. This lyrical, occasionally magic-realist novel – a self-portrait, a love story and a social history all in one – is ultimately about A well-written, richly stratified and occasionally accepting being uprooted. She is obliged to abandon the memories that have shocking book. Splendid literature. made her what she is, and a country she flees a second time. hp/de tijd publishing details rights other titles in translation Een nagelaten verhaal (2010) De Bezige Bij La habitación azul (De blauwe kamer). Barcelona: 270 pp Van Miereveldstraat 1 Lumen, 2010. nl – 1071 dw Amsterdam tel.: +31 20 305 98 10 fax: +31 20 305 98 24 e-mail: [email protected] website: www.debezigebij.nl 3 Ingenious composition Laia Fàbregas Landing iztresa’ means nothing, ‘B3not in any language. It is just a collection of letters, but anyone who wants can find meaning in it. In Landen (Land- ing) by Laia Fàbregas, it is a photo Ignacio Sánchez Zárate metaphor for art, found hidden in a small chest that plays a cen- Born in Barcelona in 1973, Laia Fàbregas has lived in The tral role. When the man to whom Netherlands and in Spain and studied in both coun- the chest belongs dies during a tries – Visual Arts at the University of Barcelona and, flight from Spain to The Nether- later, Art and Culture Management in Rotterdam. She lands, the woman who’d been also followed the creative writing course at the Rietveld placed in the seat beside him Academy in Amsterdam. Having originally gone there to takes it with her. Gradually, as enrich her art, her first novel, Het meisje met de negen the two protagonists take turns telling a chapter and the chap- vingers (The Girl with the Nine Fingers), about two ters jump backwards and forwards in time, the reader grows Catalan sisters growing up in the latter days of the familiar with both their perspectives and finds out how much Franco regime was published at this time. It was well the lives of these two strangers were intertwined. received and has been translated into several other Fàbregas reveals their histories ingeniously. He, a widower, languages. One line from her debut illustrates the kind migrant and former worker at the Philips lightbulb factory, is of author Fàbregas is: ‘You’re really conceptual, you.’ It’s travelling to meet his son and grandchild. She is a young an offhand declaration of love from one character to woman, working for the Tax Office, much affected by the loss of another, yet it characterises what Fàbregas is doing, her parents, who died in a car accident long ago, from which she creating literature that playfully speaks of art. Landen is was saved. She is still looking for the person who rescued her, her second novel. albeit quite haphazardly. Yet, she manages to achieve an aston- ishing result, demonstrating how thought-through this tale is, how evocative it is – and how the inventive Fàbregas has dared to trust her reader’s insights. It is like being in a maze, having to A beautiful combination of philosophical depth and a gripping find the way out yourself. But in reality Fàbregas has left dis- story. boek creet clues along the way, and you discover that she has been ahead of you all along. The first draft may have included more That bizarre ending confronts you with the impression you detail, but it was excised, making us think ourselves. This is already had while reading: that the two stories in the book are what Landen shows us most of all – apart from beautiful, sub- connected, that together they will lead to a solution. When they stantive ideas about art and identity – how the rock reveals itself don’t, the whole book takes on something intangible and fasci- in the pebble. nating – and you understand why Fàbregas is a devotee of Paul Auster and of conceptual art. nrc handelsblad publishing details rights other titles in translation Landen (2010) Anthos La ragazza dalle nove dita (Het meisje met de negen vingers). Modena, 209 pp Herengracht 499 Roma: Guanda, 2009. Also in French (Arles: Actes Sud, in prep.), in nl – 1017 bt Amsterdam Spanish (Barcelona: El Aleph, 2008), in Danish (Charlottenlund: Ries, rights sold tel.: +31 20 524 54 11 2009), in Norwegian (Oslo: Aschehoug, 2009) and in Catalan (Barcelona: Ara Llibres fax: +31 20 420 04 22 Columna, 2008). e-mail: [email protected] [email protected] website: www.amboanthos.nl 4 A new highlight in Lanoye’s oeuvre Tom Lanoye Speechless om Lanoye’s successful and well- T35received novel, Sprakeloos (Speech- less), tells the story of the life and death of the author’s parents, particularly his mother’s. It starts with an appealing lament about the effort it took him to Tom Lanoye (b. 1958) is one of the most popular write about them, questioning his and well regarded Flemish authors. He started out methods and the result. The main as a poet and a critic, but became famous with his theme of the story that follows is the final years of his mother’s life. prose, drama, politically and socially engaged After a thrombosis, she suffers aphasia and behavioural problems and columns and his performances. Abroad, particu- never recovers sufficiently to be able to live at home. New attacks larly in Germany, he is highly regarded as a script make her entirely dependent on help. Her son, the author, is deeply writer. His debut as a fiction writer was Een slagers - touched by her loss of speech, which – as an amateur actress – had zoon met een brilletje (A Butcher’s Son with Glasses). been so dear to her, and his impotent anger at this from time to time After Alles moet weg (Everything Must Go, 1988, makes his story a ‘song of curses’. In compensation – and as a grateful filmed in 1996), he established his reputation once and moving homage – he reconstructs her life in the abundance of and for all with Kartonnen dozen (Cardboard Boxes, language that used to be hers. 1991), an autobiographical novel about becoming José, as the mother was called, is depicted as a flamboyant, domi- aware of his homosexuality. His most important neering and controlling woman who, investing great effort in her work until now, about the eventful nineties in family and their butcher’s shop, always strove for everyone’s Belgium, which Flemish television turned into a respectability, reputation and well-being, resorting, from time to ten part series, was the award-winning Monster- time, to dramatic scenes and shrewd manipulation to get her way.