Tomorrow morning very early I leave for Turkey. I’m going to the Uçan Süpürge Film Festival in Ankara with my film ‘Silent City’. It’s my first visit to this country, where I always wanted to go but never got the opportunity. I’m not traveling alone. The lead of ‘Silent City’, Laurence Roothooft, is also invited; this will make this festival visit extra special for me.
Most of my work includes traveling. For the research of my new novel I got a travelling grant from the Dutch Foundation for Literature (Letterenfonds). This means that at the end of the summer I will go to Florida USA. The coming months I will prepare this research and do some apprenticeship to collect other material for my book which I can find easier in Holland.
Books and films can have a long life. This in contrast with theatre performances, which after breaking down the sets and cleaning the stage, don’t exist any longer. Books and films stay for years; on shelves, in libraries or other collections and archives. They can pop up after years to be re-read or to find new audiences. I don’t know why, but the last months almost all my books came back into my life. I got several requests from readers who were looking for De kus van de weduwe (The Widow’s Kiss). My novel Motormoeder (Motor Mother) will be part of an exhibition. I gave a lecture on a high school about De stille stad (The Silent City). The Norwegian translation of Wachten op de moesson (Waiting for the Monsoon) has been published and this week is Het laatste land (The Last Land) the readers’ tip from a group of libraries.
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