Starting with the Opening Night on Thursday and the presentation of the Oxfam Novib PEN awards, the tone of the festival is set: freedom of speech, the possibility to express and transmit thoughts and feelings freely and, most of all, safely, to inform of circumstances that are usually suppressed - this is, next to the entertainment and meeting grand authors, what makes this festival so special.
And this year's Opening Night showed again how important it is to reveal suppression of the free word worldwide. As director of Oxfam Novib Farah Karimi pointed up in her speech, in those thirteen years of the awards being presented, two of the past awarded authors have been killed in the meantime. And this year's award ceremony was also overshadowed by the fact that none (!) of the three authors could be present at the festival themselves: Turkish journalist Can Dundar is currently imprisoned for articles on the Turkish president Recep Erdogan, poet and author Amanuel Asrat from Eritrea has been imprisoned since 2001 and it is even unclear if he is still alive, and author Omar Hazek, was held back by the authorities at the airport in Egypt on his scheduled flight to Schiphol. To hear about these facts made it obvious how fragile the freedom of speech, to critically inform and survey suppression, still is in the 21st century.
Next, I switched halls and listened to Dutch journalist Frank Westerman in a talk with Croatian author Slavenka Drakulic on the war in Yugoslavia and its aftermaths. Again and again, their talk showed how important it is to report on wartimes form various points of view reflecting the huge impact war has on its manifold 'participants'.
The successive talk in hall 2 focused as well on informing listeners from a non-governmental point of view on their countries in turmoil respectively. Egyptian writer Alaa Al Aswany informed of the Arab Spring and Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov of the Ukranian uprising. How different and still similar the unrest in both countries are influenced by the various layers of its society. The wish to change circumstances, to actively participate in the redirection of one's country's history and simultaneously being faced with the multilayers of interests underlying the various activities. Again, this talk showed how important it is to have critical voices giving a larger picture of the inner conflicts of each country.
And finally, my personal 'Friday Night' at the festival, always closes with poetry. In hall 1, the nominated poets to the VSB poetry prize present their poems and each time, the festival succeeds in making special arrangements. This year, a poem by Syrian author Adonis was set on music by 'musician in residence' Dick van der Harst and his fellow musicians. Modestly arranged, still excellently performed. It's been a pleasure again!
Next day, Saturday, started early again: I visited the literary brunch organised by a young community called, CLEEFT, on first time novelists: what happens when your first book is being published. Bregje Hofstede and Lize Spit were interviewed on their experiences on their first book. Lize Spit just had her first book presented at the festival. All in all a very interesting talk with music by Gerson Main, an upcoming singer-songwriter with hilarious texts and a notable outfit. Interesting point being made by the audience: do first time novelist have to be young of age? Food for thought for another literary brunch.
Another event in hall 2 took on a similar tone: how much does national / private conflicts have influence on the long term: "Where can you hide?" with authors from all walks of life: Petina Gappah from Zimbabwe, José Eduardo Agualusa from Angola, Joanna Bator from Poland and György Dragomán from Romania presenting their books with each a female protagonist trying to hide from reality. Most notable author to me was José Eduardo Agualusa. His style of writing made me very curious about his novels and I will certainly read on...
And then followed another excellent event in hall 1: the "Seven Deadly Sins" - seven authors were asked to write a text on one of the capital sins, complemented by 'musician in residence' Dirk van der Harst and his colleagues plus the extraordinary voice of singer Lieselot de Wilde. Again, a programme I can blindly trust to give me thorough pleasure and joy of the spoken word by each noteworthy author.
To bring the evening to a close emphasising the dark side of the festival (according to its motto), Belgian singer Helmut Lotti presented a mix of poems and songs from his latest CD making use of his very special timbre.
And I couldn't leave the festival without the early Sunday morning radio show O.V.T., transmitted live from the festival. Interesting authors being interviewed on various subjects: this year, part of the show focused on the latest book by poet Rodaan Al Galidi Hoe ik talent voor het leven kreeg ('How I got talent for this life' not yet translated). Instead of the media writing over refugees and their lives, Rodaan was asked by Adriaan van Dis to publish his point of view as a refugee and his long term bureaucratic ordeal in the Netherlands. In his typical comic way Rodaan succeeds in describing a tragic situation in such a hilarious way that you can never be sure whether to laugh or to cry. His style reminds me so much of the style of Nasreddin, the Iranian philosophical poet. In the meantime his book has even reached prominence as it was declared 'Book of the Month' by the Dutch tv programme DWDD acknowledging his singular point of view.Again, Winternachten has been a wonderful and inspiring begin of the new (literary) year and I am glad to have taken the time to attend all four days! Time again to make use of an altered Jewish saying: "Next year in Den Haag"!