A War Story in Celebration of My Mother's Life

11/10/23

To mark the 100th anniversary of my mother's birth, I'd like to share a story that captures the resilience and stubborn pragmatism of a generation who were robbed of their youth by a five-year war. Had she been alive today, I'm sure my mother would have expressed bitter disappointment that, despite the hardship and horrors endured by so many, we have been unable to find our way to lasting peace.

review

#BookWalk | The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet | David Mitchell

2/9/24

This is a ten-excerpt review of David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, preceded by some musings on the dangers of reviewing the work of colleagues.

review

#BookWalk – excerpts from Vivian Gornick’s “The Situation and the Story – the Art of Personal Narrative”

9/9/24

warning: This is a book for writers and should be avoided by readers at all costs, because it explains the trickery behind the illusion, basically spoiling your enjoyment of excellent books in much the same way that a floor-to-ceiling mirror can spoil an evening%E2%80%99s dancing at the discotheque or nocturnal shenanigans in the comfort of your own home. Allow me to illustrate...

kort verhaal

Allemaal onzin natuurlijk

19/5/21

Dit verhaal verscheen eerder in een bundel ter viering van Guus Bauers 60ste verjaardag, waarin schrijvers op uitnodiging van David de Poel vertelden over hun meest miserabele bijbaantjes.

Letters

Preemptive Letters of Rejection

19/5/21

A series of letters to McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Paris Review, Playgirl, The New Yorker, Granta Magazine, Oprah Winfrey, the Nobel Prize and the Prime Minister of Canada, pre-emptively rejecting their offers to exploit my literary assets.

blog

Drie generaties meelopers

19/5/21

‘Het is makkelijk praten vanuit de helikopter,’ tweette ik gisteren aan een vriendin, toen ze haar bezorgdheid uitsprak over het protest op de Dam, waar mijn jongste dochter aan meedeed. Ze is negentien maar gaat inmiddels al aardig wat jaartjes haar eigen gang in Amsterdam.

oorlogsherinnering

Mijn moeder en de Schriele Gevangene

18/11/22

Mijn moeder zou vandaag 99 zijn geworden. Altijd als ik gesoigneerde fascisten op de kanalen zie moet ik aan haar denken. Vooral aan het oorlogstrauma dat ervoor gezorgd heeft dat ook ik weet dat iedereen een stem mag hebben, zelfs als daar uitsluitend haat mee wordt gezaaid...

News

Unbearable Joy – a Slovenian translation from my latest novel

10/12/17

Neznosna radost – Unbearable Joy – is the beautiful Slovenian title of a story from my latest novel Van Kleine Helden (All The Little Heroes), which was recently published in the leading Slovenian literary magazine Literatura.

Poem

Things I Have Said About Rain

19/5/21

A poem about love composed of selected #walk tweets about rain.

Chapter 92 | Had I intended to write all this? ⁠— a letter from 1943

11/10/23

In early 1943, the German occupying forces tightened restrictions on telephone traffic. Travel by train was dangerous due to attacks by Allied warplanes, so my grandparents and aunt began writing letters to mother, who was then 20 and working as a trainee nurse at a psychiatric institution for women and girls, located out in the countryside about 100 kilometres from home in Amsterdam. After my mother's death, I read the 25 letters she had kept for the first time. My grandmother died in 1947, so these letters are my only connection with her.