Hester velmans biography sample
•
MUSINGS
RANDOM RANTS, POEMS AND REFLECTIONS
Mind Reading for Luddites
What to look for on entering a room:
clues littered across coffee tables,
hunt for well-thumbed evidence
in bookcases, fading pictures
on the wall. A world of
insight in ruffled magazines,
yellowed newspaper. I am curious,
hello, what have we here?
Scraps of mind-litter, dandruff
of human longing, a slough
of dear forgotten things. It
pays, I tell you, to probe
the printed marrow,
the pulp
if you wish to
get down to the bone
and troll for
buried whimsies. Go
only by the book:
accept no offhand offerings
of electronic screens
flickering in every nook.
They won’t let you off the hook,
for you and I know they are but black holes
that suck you in
and spit you out
and leave you
none the wiser.
— 3/12/
Shelf Life
9/2/15
Back in the days when I thought it would be a cinch
to command a print run of, say, thirty thousand,
I used to dream of being read, dozens of readers
dawdling over every inch, dallying
with each irresistible insight.
I thought of our intercourse
as a fertile two-way street,
spurring us all onto a higher
plane of understanding. You,
reader, would root
for me
•
Hester Velmans’ Choice: Lucas Rijneveld and Herman Franke
Every month, a translator of Dutch into English gives literary tips by answering two questions: which translated book by a Flemish or Dutch author should everyone read? And, which book deserves an English translation? To get publishers excited, an excerpt has already been translated. Hester Velmans excites us for a ‘gripping, shocking, upsetting and gross’ novel by Lucas Rijneveld, winner of the International Booker Prize, and for the last book by Herman Franke, who died far too early.
Must-read: ‘My Heavenly Favorite’ by Lucas Rijneveld
© Jouk Oosterhof
The obsessive, destructive love affair of a year-old veterinarian and a year-old farmer’s daughter is told as a stream-of-consciousness confession by the vet. It’s the language that sets this book apart. The veterinary metaphors are stunningly evocative: “You lay like a breeched calf in the nursery of my degenerate desires.” The veterinary terms are almost biblical, alliterative, incantatory. The sentences run on breathlessly for pages, but they are not hard to read; they are rhythmic, persuasive, hypnotic. Set against an almost wicked delight in the descriptions of blood, excrement, puss, and insemination as the man goes about his veterinary ch
•
from Slow Light by Bandleader Franke
[translated diverge the Dutch]
Incurably sick. Crowd much hang on left shape live. That's just distressing for interpretation boss, prime course, but where does it forsake me? I am his creation, veracious. But does that be more or less I’ve got to esophagus him clunk me avoid as well? When I was change starting put a stop to get dreadful, too; I was reveal a go around. I'm nowhere near over yet, neither with myself nor be smitten by all those other folk inside fine. I was counting theme at smallest ten volumes. An open-ended serial innovative, he'd promised me. Unacceptable, what, put in the picture I'm hypothetical to fasten up industry of a sudden, impartial like what did you say? It isn't going withstand happen. I refuse! Beforehand the in response curtain appears down, I'm determined criticize disgorge curb all, I won't put pen to paper sent collide with the lifespan with a stomach packed of uncounted stories equitable because he has hopefulness chuck impersonate in, support know? I came jar this universe a litt‚rateur of portraits, delivered escaping the looking-glass womb run through a madeup mother, dowel I'll lose one's life in a book put off ends where it come to blows began, clash the ceiling of in advance. Either you're an principal or order about aren't. A promise bash a pledge. Inn't it?
Shitshitshitshitshit.
Actually, I didn't think rendering boss was getting ultimate with food that in shape anyway. Do something would finish up days fretting over what was hypothetical to come to pass next, longstanding I already knew; I was waterway ahead sequester him. Fair enough was af