Saskia De Coster
(Belgium, 1976) in the blurb of her novel Wij en ik (We and I, 2013) Tom Lanoye called her 'for years the most stubborn, most capricious and most attractive pen in Belgium. In this penetrating family novel she chastises modern European man and describes how strong family ties are. 'The Great Flemish novel isn't dead. It has just been written by Saskia De Coster', Herman Koch wrote. Multitalented De Coster made her debut in 2000 with the story Onder elkaar (Among Each Other). She writes with gusto and soaks her stories - often populated by unwordly characters - in a firm dash of humor. She writes columns too, is a visual and video artist and she writes for the theatre - and lyrics. Saskia De Coster is very active on international literary stages. De Costers latest novel was published in 2015 and received (just like 'Wij en ik' did) the 'Cutting Edge Award'.
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Archive available for: Saskia De Coster
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Talking to the writer: Saskia De Coster
Join the regulars' table. Host Francis Broekhuijsen welcomes Saskia De Coster. We listen to her favourite music, and talk to her. Don't forget to have your books autographed. In Dutch.
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A piece of elite to the people - a polemic
Gone seem the times of literary fireworks between opponents who, with a feeling for language and humor, sought the boundaries of decency in their zeal to tirelessly cross verbal swords. Those good old times revive with a round of polemics between Abdelkader Benali and Saskia De Coster. Both of them fiercely plead for and against the return of the elite. Down with the dictatorship of the rabble, down with long live the people!
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Wintercafé 2: Hold on! Oulipo.
Hold on! Oulipo and the literary restriction: If you play the game, you make the rules. The French OuLiPo company (Ouvroir Littéraire Potentielle, founded in 1960) thought that with self-imposed literary restrictions one could write potentially interesting texts. In which only the e as a vowel would occur, or a poem in which all the letters of the alphabet would recur.This programme, a co-production of Wintertuin (Nijmegen) and festival Winternachten (The Hague) is a tribute to the writers, mathematicians and philosophers of OuLiPo. Four writers, Saskia de Coster, Karin Amamoetkrin, Anton Valens and Joke van Leeuwen were given a restriction by writer/mathematician Hugo Brandt Corstius in Nijmegen. Now the four writers and their 'patron' get together in The Hague to read the results. Meanwhile, all the texts will have been published in a handy-sized booklet – available at Winternachten in a limited edition!
At the end of this hour there is a performance by saxophonist and composer Maarten Ornstein and Joshua Samson (percussion). Ornstein composed music to poems of the South African poet Ronelda Kamfer. In Dutch. -
Wintercafé 4: Rules for Radicals 2.0
Nowadays, where does an angry artist leave his rage and criticism? In 'Rules for Radicals' we search for a pragmatic manual for the making of harmful literature, street noise and bombs for the national canon. Which are the new strategies for today's artists? In this programme we propose a new form of radicalism. The artist should penetrate the system as a sheep in wolves' clothes in order to eat the codes and replace them with others. No overt opposition, but infiltration. The good example: The Yes Men, with their 'identity correction'. The Yes Men disguise themselves as big criminals with the objective to humiliate them publicly. And who are these criminals? CEOs and representatives of big companies who put profit above everything else. In Dutch. See also the movie that is shown in advance of this programme: The Yes Men Fix the World. In English (Dutch subtitles).
