The Text of my Life: Alfred Schaffer

Which texts from world literature has Dutch poet Alfred Schaffer cherished as long as he lives? He discusses the text with the audience. Moderated by Wim Brands and Simone van Saarloos. In Dutch.

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Information

Date and time Friday 17 January 2014 22:15 tot 22:35 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A

Which texts from world literature has Dutch poet Alfred Schaffer cherished as long as he lives? This most beautiful or most inspiring text can be a poem, an excerpt from a novel or a song-text. He discusses the text with the audience. In Dutch.

Alfred Schaffer

(Leidschendam, 1973) is a poet, translator and lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. He made his debut in 2000 with the poetry collection Zijn opkomst in de voorstad (His Rise in the Suburb). Over the years, his poetry collections were often awarded or nominated for several important prizes, and translations appeared in English, Afrikaans, French, Chinese, Indonesian, Swedish and other languages. For the collection Kooi he received the Jan Campert Prize and the Ida Gerhardt Poetry Prize in 2008. His work is sometimes humorous, sometimes matter-of-fact and at the same time full of absurd inventions. In 2014, he published his, again critically acclaimed collection Mens Dier Ding. In 2021, he published the personal collection Wie was ik?, for which he received the Herman De Coninck Prize. That same year, Alfred Schaffer was awarded the P.C. Hooft Prize, the largest annual oeuvre prize in Dutch literature.
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Wim Brands

(Brummen, NL, 1959 - Amsterdam, 2016) was a poet, journalist, and media presenter. At a young age he debuted as a poet in the Dutch literary magazine Hollands Maandblad. Since then he has published books of poetry quite regularly, such as Neem me mee zei de hond (Take Me With You Said the Dog, 2010). After the publication of his first collection Inslag (Impact, 1985), he began working as an interviewer for the VPRO broadcasting company. Later he became head producer of the Radio 6 programme "De Avonden." Since 2005  he talked to writers on VPRO's book programme "Boeken" on both TV and radio. He put together Briefgeheimen (Postcard Secrets, 2007), a colourful compilation of postcards linked to a website where people can divulge their deepest secrets. Overkomst dringend gewenst (Return Voyage Urgently Requested), his anthology of the work of poet Jan Emmens, was published in 2012, and his most recent poetry collection, 's Middags zwem ik in de Noordzee (In the Afternoons I Swim in the North Sea) in 2014. Brands was one of the "Lonely Departure" poets who compose and present a final poetic tribute to people who pass away without friends or family.
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Simon(e) van Saarloos

is a writer, artistic collaborator and curator. They are the author of Against Ageism. A Queer Manifesto (2023); Take ‘Em Down. Scattered Monuments and Queer Forgetting (2021) and Playing Monogamy (2019) as well as several books in Dutch: Herdenken herdacht (2019); Enz. Het Wildersproces (2018); the novel De vrouw die (2016); the collection of columns Ik deug / deug niet ( 2015) and Het monogame drama (2015). . Van Saarloos works as an independent curator of public programming and artistic collaborations. A current PhD candidate in Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, they are interested in Black feminist engagements with quantum physics and focused on the rhetorical (im)possibility of existence without defense. Van Saarloos is currently writing a new book for AK Press, titled Trans Despair: Staying Unrelated and Insecure.

Go the website of Simon(e) van Saarloos
Instagram: @svansaarloos
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