Cultura Nova: HIER IS NIET… CARRY SLEE
And here is not Carry Slee... but Erik Jan Harmens. It is slowly becoming a tradition: the young literary talents of 'Het Belangrijk Genootschap Met Een Nog Onduidelijke En Steeds Wisselende Maar Immer Literaire Inhoud' do not invite a well-known writer to Cultura Nova, for instance because he or she is too expensive or no longer alive. So this year Carry Slee will not be invited (because Carry Slee is for children). Erik Jan Harmens, however, will be invited.
Where
Boekhandel van der Velden-Van Dam, Promenade 153
Erik Jan Harmens (1970) has published five books of poetry. The most recent, kom (Come, 2019), was about panting. The poem 'h h', which consists of 56 times one and the same letter, is one of the classics in Dutch poetry. He was the first poetry slam champion of the Netherlands in 2002 and published six novels, including Rigolettohof (2021); the Alphen novel, about how a man grows up in the 1970s and 1980s in the vicinity of a shopping centre (the Ridderhof) which would later, on 9 April 2011, turn into a crime scene.
In September 2021 Harmens published an essay in NRC Handelsblad on the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder that he received two years ago. He is currently writing a non-fiction book about that diagnosis. Also in preparation is an album of Dutch songs and a biography of rapper Hef.
het genootschap
Het Genootschap is a group of young literary talents under the guidance of PANDA (Merlijn Huntjens) and SCHUNCK (Eugene van Loo). They meet monthly to work on texts, to talk about the terrible literary landscape and the uncertain existence of writers.
This programme is made possible thanks to Cultura Nova, Boekhandel van der Velden - van Dam and the 23rd Literary Summer.