– 11/13/14, 22:34
© Michiel Hendryckx / Wikimedia Commons.
Interview The Flemish writer Stefan Hertmans for his novel “War and Turpentine ‘tonight Ako Literature received. The jury Hertmans delivers the book “his late master’s thesis, which already has the status of a classic.” The book was published already in 2013, and has already been translated into German. Earlier this year it was also nominated for the Libris Literature Prize. When Joost van Velzen Hertmans interviewed about his book, and literary prizes.
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© The Busy Bee.
More beautiful than the Brussels café Le Cirio you do not see them often, with that untouched Art Nouveau interior. The Turin businessman Francesco Cirio founded here in 1886 a shop and restaurant with Italian specialties. Later it became a café. Jacques Brel was also like, here you see him before you, standing at the bar. “
We have this anyway due to the French speakers,” says Stefan Hertmans. “They have a good sense of tradition.” Logically that something appeals Hertmans. The Flemish writer is a master at evoking a bygone era. In his novel “War and turpentine,” which tonight will compete for the Libris Literature Prize, he pulls the décor of his country during the First World War, seen through the eyes of his grandfather. Based on the records of his grandfather, who Hertmans had in his possession all along, but where he is now only the hands and the mind was free.
Fans of Geert Mak will irrevocably submit the link to his’ The age of my father.
“War and turpentine ‘recently won the public award of the Golden Owl, say the Libris Prize Flanders. It may be a sign. The beautiful words of the jury of the Libris Prize may Hertmans, in any event stabbing in his pocket: “The individual existence and the great history mirror each other in this novel. And in that double mirror sees the writer Hertmans reflected himself, he is looking for his place, and a way for a writer to rise above the copy, not to commit treason to the truth, but not to the artistic truthfulness .
How do you rate your chances in tonight?
“I have no expectations, I do not write for it. It should not aim for a price write, it is something that comes in. We’ll see. A jury remains a collection of people with preferences that are coordinated. “
Do you think literary prizes important?
“The literary field is a fragile field. The ‘quirky writer” under pressure. you have wrongly. Of course, quirky, which is the essence of writing. I think literary awards therefore are good for whole field, I’m not going to condemn it. Even if getting such price something of a good dog that gets a cookie. Well done, son. Something like that. “
You had the records of your grandfather in the eighties of the last century in your possession. Why are there only now it started working?
“I had over the years a battery of excuses invented just to not having to start. It was such a strictly personal matter, you can only do this with complete dedication. But I had promised my grandfather on his deathbed I will ever write your story. But I had to first mature, technically, stylistically. This was quiet and open and are written with more distance. To understand some loves is relinquishing necessary. I had that style, moreover, almost physically feel to bring together these two levels: that of the great story of the great war and that of the little story, the life and feelings of my grandfather. Because what I had feared was true: the issue was very sensitive and it was difficult to hit the right pitch “
And where to begin
?”. I started it to ask me how it must have smelled in Ghent then. Fragrances are a sensation that you might be closer to everyday life comes from then, I thought. Damp burlap, damp wood, horse manure, tanneries. Fragrances evoke the strongest memories in us. More than anything. When I had mapped the book was open to me. Then you will also find itself the tone. But is much more to it. Fact Checking, research, just put everything aside, start again. The book contains many practical details. It is these details reflect the big story. “
Is the story of” War and turpentine “partly fictional?
” As my grandfather own elements added, did so I do too. Sometimes I added things, but withdrew certain details also open, though I did so based on his notes. It works like an accordion: Sometimes he pulls an anecdote more open and stretches on, I make the story shorter, and vice versa. It was not my goal to write a chronicle of war, but to show how life has been for that generation. It has become ultimately a book about the war, but also much more. Over trauma through art, a great love, a tribute to the artistic sense and finally a book about the little Fleming. The story has many layers. “
You make life at that time through the corridors of your grandfather insightful. Were you yourself also as a human this time?
“When I visited the places my grandfather I walked a bit with him in me. Yes, I went there with his genes in my body. Also with the legacy of his morals, without my knowing it. “What is that moral?” Very conscientiously, do not complain, strong sense of fair play. I though of him, I think. He was a strong person who could say yes, I conform myself to the order of the existing standard. Not from a lack of strength, but because he genuinely felt that heard the case. He was conscientiously, but not therefore yet characterless docile. That kind of quiet persevere with their traumas gradually disappeared, so he was lonely. And so he painted. And wrote That ultimately artistic is something I have of him. My grandfather gave me a great piece of art by his sense. “
What is this” time machine “that you moved to its time you learned?
” That I’m not as bad as I thought autonomously. You are as a human right actually quite heteronomous. Much of what you think you’ve invented yourself, your ever handed. War and turpentine ‘was for me a lesson in humility. “
In the First World War got your country broadside. Discovering that that period is still alive in Belgium?
“It is unlikely what it evokes. People were in tears at my signing table. Some see this book as a second ‘Sorrow of Belgium “, but then so on the First World War. Yes, it does a lot, even with myself. Still. “
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