Wim Brands: The text of my life

For one night Manon Uphoff and Aleid Truijens ask their guests which literary text has been most important in their lives. First guest: Television presenter Wim Brands and an Ezra Pound poem. In Dutch.

20050225154109

Information

Date and time Saturday 19 January 2013 20:00 tot 20:20 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - De Kas

For one night Manon Uphoff and Aleid Truijens are hosts in the Greenhouse. In this glass house just outside the theatre they receive a series of writers who will tell you what the most important text in their lives is: a poem, or a fragment from a novel they has stayed with them throughout their lives. First guest: Wim Brands. He not only hosts the Sunday morning tv programme Brands met Boeken (Brands with Books), but he's also a poet. And tonight he is the devotee. Who talks with you about why an Ezra Pound poem is so important to him. In Dutch.

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.
20050225154109

Manon Uphoff

(The Netherlands, 1962) is a Dutch writer, screenwriter and visual artist. She made her debut in 1995 with the collection of short stories Begeerte (Desire), which was nominated for the AKO Literature Prize, the Anton Wachter Prize and the ECI Prize. The title story was awarded the Rabobank Spring Prize for Literature. Her first novel Gemis (1997) was nominated for the Libris Literature Prize. Her most recent book, Vallen is als vliegen (Falling is Like Flying, 2019), was shortlisted for both the 2019 Bookspot Literature Prize and the 2020 Libris Literature Prize. The novel was named the best Dutch-language novel of 2019 by NRC Handelsblad and Humo. Uphoff was editor of the literary magazine De Revisor and board member and president of PEN Netherlands. As a screenwriter, she wrote the feature film screenplay Een Groot Geweld (Topkapi Films).
20211028115638 1

Aleid Truijens

(Amsterdam, NL 1955) writes for daily newspapers and mgazines, particularly about art, literature, upbringing and education. In 2012 she published a book about these topics. In it she sketches the dilemmas of modern parenthood. In her weekly column for Volkskrant too Truijens writes a lot about upbringing and education. She made her debut in 2004 with Geen nacht zonder (Not a Night without), about a four-year old girl suffering from leukemia and the impact it has of the family. This novel was translated in German. Her second novel Vriendendienst (Friendly Turn; 2007) is about a bunch of schoolfriends taking stock together around their fiftieth birthday. They are all traumatised by the early suicide of one of their friends. In 2011 her biography about the writer F.B. Hotz appeared, about whom she had already published in the 1990s. In 1997 she published a biography of the renowned Dutch writer Hella Haasse.
20130114234605

Discover

20 May 2026

Get your 2027 tickets!

Get your Early Bird tickets for the big festival nights, Friday & Saturday Night Unlimited!