Hugo Brandt Corstius is a former writer-in-residence at TU Delft. A mathematician who loves words, a prolific writer who likes to write under pseudonyms, Corstius is a faculty member of the Sorbonne UniversityIf you want to know about Dutch literature, there are only 500 booksyou should read.
Here are five titles:
1. Multatuli (1820-1887) wrote the novel Max Havelaar, about Dutch
colonialism, in two weeks of 1859 in the attic of a Brussels tavern.
Available as a Penguin Classic.
2. Willem Frederik Hermans (1920-1987) wrote Nooit meer slapen in which
his credo “Life is Chaos” is embedded. ‘Sleep no more’ will soon be available in English.
3. Hafid Bouazza (1970) is often compared to Nabokov. So far the only
title in English is Abdullah’s Feet. Read slowly!
4. Erwin Mortier (1965) is Belgian, writes in Flemish and is therefore
part of Netherlandic literature. His first book Marcel, about his youth and the Belgian Sorrow before his birth, has been brilliantly translated into English.
5. Battus (1935) wrote Opperlans! which defies translation as it is
based on a peculiar, formal view of the Dutch language. American psycholinguist Anne Cutler, now in Nijmegen, claims she learnt Dutch from this book – I cannot believe it.
Climb these five mountains and multiply by 100 to survey the entire
landscape of Dutch prose.
Hugo Brandt Corstius is a former writer-in-residence at TU Delft. A mathematician who loves words, a prolific writer who likes to write under pseudonyms, Corstius is a faculty member of the Sorbonne University
If you want to know about Dutch literature, there are only 500 books
you should read. Here are five titles:
1. Multatuli (1820-1887) wrote the novel Max Havelaar, about Dutch
colonialism, in two weeks of 1859 in the attic of a Brussels tavern.
Available as a Penguin Classic.
2. Willem Frederik Hermans (1920-1987) wrote Nooit meer slapen in which
his credo “Life is Chaos” is embedded. ‘Sleep no more’ will soon be available in English.
3. Hafid Bouazza (1970) is often compared to Nabokov. So far the only
title in English is Abdullah’s Feet. Read slowly!
4. Erwin Mortier (1965) is Belgian, writes in Flemish and is therefore
part of Netherlandic literature. His first book Marcel, about his youth and the Belgian Sorrow before his birth, has been brilliantly translated into English.
5. Battus (1935) wrote Opperlans! which defies translation as it is
based on a peculiar, formal view of the Dutch language. American psycholinguist Anne Cutler, now in Nijmegen, claims she learnt Dutch from this book – I cannot believe it.
Climb these five mountains and multiply by 100 to survey the entire
landscape of Dutch prose.
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