Cynthia McLeod,Tessa Leuwsha and Jörgen Raymann - Suriname: a new history

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Information

Date and time Thursday 14 March 2019 from 20:30 to 22:00 hrs
Location Podium B - Centrale Bibliotheek Den Haag, Spui 68, 5e etage

Cynthia Mc Leod

(Suriname, 1936) made her writer's debut with Hoe duur was de suiker? (How Costly Was the Sugar?, 1987), the novel that made her the most famous Surinamese writer overnight and was adapted for film in 2013. She was the first to describe the history, the slaving past and the colonization of her country from a Surinamese perspective. As an expert in the field, she lectures about the history of slavery at US and Canadian universities and organizes educational field and city trips. She has written historic novels, including De Vrije Negerin Elisabeth, gevangene van kleur (The Free Negress Elizabeth, Prisoner of Colour, 1992), as well as studies, children's books and children's musicals. Her No kwik in het bos (No Mercury in the Forest, 2017) is a YA novel about a ten-year-old girl and the dangers of mercury in the gold-mining process. McLeod is a daughter of Johan Ferrier, the first president of Suriname.
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Tessa Leuwsha

(Netherlands, 1967) is a fiction and non-fiction author, documentarian and critic. In 1995 she emigrated to Surinam as a freelance journalist and in 1997 published Reishandboek Suriname, a cultural travel guide. Her first published short story Voor William (For William) won the incentive prize of the Kwakoe literary awards. In 2005 her novel debut de Parbo-blues appeared, followed in 2009 by the novel Solo, een liefde (Solo, a love) about the ambition of two lovers in colonial Surinam who desire a better life. Her non-fictional Fansi's stilte, een grootmoeder en de slavernij (Fansi's Silence, a Grandmother and Slavery, 2015) tells the life of her grandmother. In Plantage Wildlust (2020), she describes life on a Surinamese plantation in the early 20th century, during the period of contract labour, through various characters. De wilde vaart (Tramp Trade, 2022) recounts, in text and image, a boat journey in which Leuwsha and her husband travel Surinamese waters in search of their own core and the resilience of a people. Leuwsha is cultural attaché of the Dutch Embassy in Paramaribo, and writes columns, articles and reviews for various Surinamese media.
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Jörgen Raymann

(Netherlands, 1966) is a cabaret artist, stand-up comedian, singer, actor and presenter. He grew up in Suriname, then studied economics at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, where he was introduced to cabaret. After his studies he returned to Suriname, where he organized cabaret dinners in his own restaurant. He became known in the Netherlands in the late ’90s as the host of shows like Comedy Factory and Raymann is Laat. He is co-owner of Men at Work TV Produkties, which is responsible for the annual Great Dutch Dictation contest, among other programs. He has toured with theatre productions and can be heard weekdays on BNR News Radio on his program Ask Me Anything. As of February 2020, he will play the role of Horace in the musical Hello Dolly.
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