Archipelago Books Celebrates Launch of Hugo Claus' EVEN NOW Today

Archipelago Books welcomes 2013 Vondel Translation Prize Winner David Colmer, who will present his remarkable translations of EVEN NOW: Poems by Hugo Claus. Q&A will be led by Frank Ligtvoet, who will read from the Dutch originals.

The prose, poetry, and paintings of Hugo Claus (1929-2008) were as influential as they were groundbreaking. His novels include The Sorrow of Belgium, his magnum opus of postwar Europe, as well as Wonder, Desire, The Swordfish, Mild Destruction, Rumors, and The Duck Hunt. His corpus of poetry is immense and stunningly diverse. In addition to receiving every major Dutch-language literary prize, Claus received the 2002 Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding for his body of work.

Writer and translator David Colmer has won numerous awards for his translations, including major Australian and Dutch prizes for his body of work. Colmer's translation of Gerbrand Bakker's The Twin (Archipelago) was awarded the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and he received - along with Gerbrand Bakker - the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for Bakker's novel The Detour. Colmer is also a recipient of the David Reid Poetry Translation Prize.

Frank Ligtvoet had various jobs in the literary world before he became the founding director of the Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature in Amsterdam. He moved to New York as the head of the Cultural Section at the Dutch Consulate. Now he is free lance writer and as an adoptive dad active in the world of adoption and foster care.

Beautifully translated from the Dutch by David Colmer, the IMPAC Award-winning translator of Gerbrand Bakker's The Twin, Hugo Claus's poems are remarkable for their dexterity, intensity of feeling, and acute intelligence. From the richly associative Oostakker Poems to the emotional and erotic outpouring of the "mad dog stanzas" in Morning, You, from his interpretations of Shakespeare's sonnets to his modern adaptation of a Sanskrit masterpiece, this volume reveals the breadth and depth of Claus's stunning output. An undisputed giant of twentieth-century European literature, for years Claus was a vital force in the Belgian avant-garde. These poems challenge clerical practices, bourgeois morality, and all forms of authority with visceral passion and candor.

Where:
Flanders House
44th floor of the New York Times Building
620 8th Ave. NY, NY

When:
TONIGHT, November 6th
7pm

Please RSVP:

rsvp2@flandershouse.org | T: 212-584-2200

A special thanks to Flanders House for their generous support.

To post a comment, you must register and login.