Gelezen in mei 2022

Een Franse roman: Je vais mieux - David Foenkinos

Hier vind je mijn bespreking in het Frans en het Nederlands onderaan. 

Een Nederlandse poëziebundel: Komijnsplitsers - Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

Deze derde gedichtenbundel (januari, 2022) van Rijneveld bevat prachtige zinnen en heeft bij mij overweldigende gevoelens losgeweekt. Een aanrader voor de poëzieliefhebbers! 

Bio in het Engels: 

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld grew up in a Reformed farming family in North Brabant (NL) before moving to Utrecht. One of the greatest new voices in Dutch literature, his first poetry collection, Calfskin (Kalfsvlies), was awarded the C. Buddingh’ Prize for best poetry debut in 2015, with newspaper de Volkskrant naming him literary talent of the year. In 2018, Atlas Contact published his first novel, 'The Discomfort of Evening' ('De avond is ongemak'), which won the prestigious ANV Debut Prize and was a Dutch bestseller. In 2020, this first novel got awarded the International Booker Prize, a first time in history for a Dutch-speaking author. In 2021, he published his second novel 'Mijn lieve gunsteling' which was even better received as his first novel and has quickly become a Dutch bestseller as well. Alongside his writing career, Rijneveld works on a dairy farm.

Een Vlaams - Duitse poëziebundel: Elk meer een zee. Jeder See ein Meer. - Das KulturForum

Hier vind je een korte voorstelling van deze bundel in het Nederlands.

Een Duitse roman: Tijl (Tyll) - Daniel Kehlmann

Hier vind je mijn Engelse bespreking. 

Een Ierse novelle: Dit soort kleinigheden (Small things like these) - Claire Keegan (Vertaler: Harm Damsma)

Een korte bespreking in het Engels:

What an excellent and beautiful heartbreaking novella! Claire Keegan describes in this story the life of coal and timber merchant Bill Furlong in a little rural Irish town. He tells about his unmarried mother who got pregnant at 16 and kicked out of the house, but fortunately got board and lodging by an elder rich lady, Mrs Wilson, and worked for her in return as a household maid.

Now he has a small enterprise of his own, and lives a good life with his wife Eileen and 5 daughters, still he feels unrest in himself. He understands he owns a lot to the late Mrs. Wilson and keeps thinking warmly of her, also on the Christmas evening of 1985. Meanwhile, he has to work and make a late delivery to the local convent and Magdalen laundry.

The Magdalen convents in Ireland were established and known for their work with unmarried mothers and girls who were considered ‘fallen and promiscuous’ - 'who were seen as a burden on their families' - by the Catholic church in cooperation with the Irish state.

Bill meets some of these young single mothers in the convent who are incarcerated and exploited, and the fate of one traumatised young mother in particular, Sarah Redmond, who he finds locked in the freezing coalhouse, hits him even harder. Although his wife has asked him to ignore what he has seen, as he has to protect his own family, he wrestles with his conscience. Bill is a good man and the situation he encounters leads him to take a courageous decision.

Claire Keegan tells about the situation of the Magdalen laundry, and Bill Furlong's life and his road to taking his life-changing decision so well in a very short span. Writing short stories this beautiful and heartbreaking with such a development is an art of its own. I definitely want to read more of this writer!

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