Andrés Neuman interviewed by Bas Heijne: On Grief and Comfort

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Essayist and NRC Handelsblad columnist Bas Heijne talks to Argentine writer Andrés Neuman, author of Traveller of the Century, one of the most important Latin American writers of the new generation. 

Early 2014 Neuman’s latest novel Hablar solos (Talking to Ourselves) will be published in a Dutch translation. A raw, but at the same time tender novel about sex and death, an intense homage to all those who had to nurse a loved-one. Bas Heijne talks to the writer about grief and the comfort of words. 
In English.

"Neuman is not only a sparkling acquisition for Latin American literature, but for European literature too." (Volkskrant) 

"The literature of the 21st century belongs to Neuman and a few of his blood brothers.” (Roberto Bolaño, author of 2666)

Information

Date and time Saturday 18 January 2014 from 16:00 to 17:30 hrs
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2

Line-up

Bas Heijne

(Nijmegen, NL, 1960) writes essays, short stories and plays, and is a columnist with the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad. He published the novels Laatste woorden (Last words) and Suez and received the Henriëtte Roland Holst Prize in 2005. In 2011's Moeten wij van elkaar houden, het populisme ontleed (Do We Have to Love One Another? Populism Dissected) Heijne shows how globalisation and individualism pave the way for populism. Angst en schoonheid (Fear and Beauty) was published in 2013, an essay about Dutch writer Louis Couperus, whom Heijne admires. In the same year his documentary about Couperus was broadcast. In 2015 he hosted the five-part documentary De volmaakte mens (The Perfect Human). In 2016 his essay Onbehagen – nieuw licht op de beschaafde mens (Discontent - new light on civilized man) was published. In 2017 Heijne received the P.C. Hooft Award for his essayistic works.
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Andrés Neuman

(Argentina, 1977) is a writer, poet, translator, columnist and blogger. Born in Argentina and the son of a violinist and an hoboist he grew up in the Spanish town of Granada from the age of fourteen. He studied Spanish letters and lectured Latin American literature at the University of Granada before breaking through with the tome Traveller of the Century. The story takes place in a fictitious 19th century European village, involving an impossible relationship between the translator Hans and his intellectual peer Sophie. According to the Volkskrant this novel equals A Hundred Years of Solitude and The Green House ‘in terms of ambition, erudition and vitality’. In his latest novel Talking to Ourselves a terminally ill man, his wife and son each tell their own story, confronted with the approaching death of the father. Neuman is a fanatical blogger. According to the cultural magazine El Cultural his blog Microrréplicas is one of the best literary blogs in Spanish.
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