Johan de Boose

(Belgium, 1962) is a Slavicist, writer and actor. He made is debut with the novel Fluweel van leegte (Velvet Emptiness) in 1994. His poetry debut followed in 1996, after which he produced a novel, poetry collection, or travel book every year. He's currently acting in a monologue, Bloedgetuigen (Blood Witnesses), based on his own 2011 novel, which describes the 20th-century struggle between Eastern and Western Europe from various perpectives in 734 pages. Part three of his trilogy Het Vloekhout (Cursed Wood) will soon be published - a tragicomic story about our times, about belief and terrorism, about aging people's fear of total futility. De Boose has also curated an exhibition on Polish avant-garde artist Tadeusz Kantor, with whom he studied, and is working on a graphic novel about the Russian Revolution of 1917. In 2008, he received the Henriette Roland-Holst Prize for De Grensganger, reis langs de ruïnes van het IJzeren Gordijn (Border Walker: Travels along the ruins of the Iron Curtain).