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De verbannen boeken van Patrick Bernauw · De Leeslampjes

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, dear book lovers. I'm Arno Olieslagers and I think
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: that our Dutch-speaking authors get too little attention. Their exciting,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: touching and sometimes even life-changing stories earn more. That's why
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I let every episode shine the light on another author.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Because no one likes to be in the dark, we
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  Speaker 1: all know that in the meantime. Patrick wrote more than
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  Speaker 1: 100 books during his rich career. But Patrick wouldn't be
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Patrick if there wasn't something strange and mysterious going on.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: His books were banned from the library of Aalst and
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: some of them even belong to the forbidden books. What
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  Speaker 1: happened here? Why were his books banned? And who is
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  Speaker 1: the man behind all those mysterious stories? Patrick, welcome to
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  Speaker 1: De Leeslampjes. Before we get into all those exciting questions,
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  Speaker 1: I would like to know who you are as an
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  Speaker 1: author and especially which books you have read in your
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  Speaker 1: youth or later, and which actually made you want to
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  Speaker 1: become a writer.
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  Speaker 2: At our home, in fact, no books came in, except
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  Speaker 2: for the multi-part Winkelerprinz Encyclopedia when I was 12 years old,
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  Speaker 2: because that was good for my studies. My parents let
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  Speaker 2: me go to the library. When I was very young,
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  Speaker 2: they brought my father's books with them and then I
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  Speaker 2: went to the library myself. But in contrast, until now,
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  Speaker 2: you were not sent from school, much less. And there
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  Speaker 2: was also little real youth literature. So I had to
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  Speaker 2: invent everything myself. And what I like to read on
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: my 13th, I read books by Konzalik. That was not
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  Speaker 2: really youth literature. Louis-Paul Baud, a little later, I had
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  Speaker 2: to see him at the library, almost to smuggle with him,
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  Speaker 2: because they were not for children or for young people.
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  Speaker 2: One of the series that I was addicted to, and
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  Speaker 2: that I still have the best memories of, was the
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  Speaker 2: series by Karl Mayer on the books of Winnetou. I
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  Speaker 2: was really crazy about it. I read them all, except one.
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  Speaker 2: The Death of Winnetou. I waited for years for that.
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  Speaker 2: I think I was 14 or 15 years old before
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  Speaker 2: I really read it. And I actually grew up reading
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  Speaker 2: books for young people.
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  Speaker 1: Why?
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  Speaker 2: If I read the book The Death of Winnetou, I
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  Speaker 2: would really be dead. And as long as I didn't
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  Speaker 2: read the book, he was still alive. In my imagination,
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  Speaker 2: in any case. And that distinguishes between... I mean, how
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  Speaker 2: your imagination can sometimes become reality. Or, yes, the emotions
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  Speaker 2: that belong to it and that are real, that has
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  Speaker 2: always been important to me. For the rest, I read
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  Speaker 2: a lot of strip stories. Yes, the classics, too. Kuifjes,
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  Speaker 2: De Skruiwiske, I was crazy about. but also the better
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  Speaker 2: script stories. In my youth, the brilliant beginning of what
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  Speaker 2: we now call the graphic novel, I was pretty quick
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  Speaker 2: with that. And then of course the writers, but then
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  Speaker 2: I was already a year or 15, 16. What a
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  Speaker 2: great teacher Dutch, Mr. Goegebuur, who not only very modern
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  Speaker 2: poets like Hermann de Konink or Jotit Hooft, but also
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  Speaker 2: with writers like Louis Paul Boon. In Aalst you can
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  Speaker 2: hardly go around there. What am I then, Mr. Bodegem?
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  Speaker 2: But that belongs to Aalst. Hubert Lampo actually got to
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  Speaker 2: know me too. And yes, they have shaped me to
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  Speaker 2: a large extent. When I was looking for my own
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  Speaker 2: way in the library, I quickly found the Griezel stories
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: and the science fiction. I read a lot of them.
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  Speaker 2: One of my greatest discoveries, and we were in the
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  Speaker 2: late seventies, was Stephen King, of whom I've read a lot.
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  Speaker 2: And a bit later, authors who.
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  Speaker 2: Stephen King had influence on my writing. Hubert Lampo, not
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  Speaker 2: so much in terms of style, because that is still Baroque,
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  Speaker 2: to put it carefully, but on the content, the magical realism, etc.
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  Speaker 2: He also put me on the way to discover other
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  Speaker 2: writers in it, with, among others, The Swans of Stonehenge,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: which is a book about magical realism. And then later years,
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  Speaker 2: Umberto Eco with the Slinger of Foucault. I still find
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  Speaker 2: that a misguided novel. I think I've skipped over 200 pages,
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: but there are also 800 or something. And the remaining 600,
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  Speaker 2: I found it so amazing, because it's a mixture of essay,
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  Speaker 2: so a whole essayist chapter about the history of the Templars,
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  Speaker 2: among others. and a novel. And that was exactly what
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  Speaker 2: I wanted to do. Writing books that you don't know
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  Speaker 2: where the boundaries are between facts and fiction. But also
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  Speaker 2: in which the essay flows into a novel. And you're
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  Speaker 2: for it or you're against it. I always have a.
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  Speaker 2: I had a good audience to follow me in.
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  Speaker 1: We are here today in Gijzighem, in Kunst in Huis,
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  Speaker 1: because here you are going to bring your preservation library
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  Speaker 1: to life, I would say, with Christa Jacobs. I was
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  Speaker 1: told that because your books have been returned from the
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  Speaker 1: library of Aalst, or at least part of it. Yes.
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  Speaker 2: Tell us, how.
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  Speaker 1: Did this happen?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, how does that happen?
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  Speaker 1: Because you're from Aalst, you're a writer from Aalst, so
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  Speaker 1: it's strange that your books wouldn't be in the library
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  Speaker 1: in Aalst.
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  Speaker 2: I also find that strange.
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  Speaker 1: The story has to be behind it, it can't be otherwise.
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  Speaker 2: There is a story behind it. To start now, I'll
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  Speaker 2: go back in time. My storage library has existed since 2018,
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  Speaker 2: We found out that some of the most important books
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  Speaker 2: were missing in the library of Aalst. A committee was
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  Speaker 2: set up with friends, artists and writers, who said we
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  Speaker 2: were going to do something. We were going to make
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  Speaker 2: a storage library. It was at the table of Elise
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  Speaker 2: in Erembolichem. It was a kind of Tiroon. a living
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  Speaker 2: room where 30 people could sit and where all kinds
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  Speaker 2: of small-scale cultural events took place, from stand-up comedy, try-outs,
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  Speaker 2: to readings, to home performances, concerts, and so on. We
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  Speaker 2: set up the storage library in the first version, but
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: the table had to be moved to another location, there
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  Speaker 2: was no room for it, And then the opportunity of
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  Speaker 2: Kunst in het Huis appeared, where Christa Jacobs, the artist,
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  Speaker 2: opened her house for all kinds of cultural, literary, artistic.
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  Speaker 1: For any exhibition, artists.
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  Speaker 2: We were looking with the scriptwriters, the writer's collective from Aalst,
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  Speaker 2: to bring something into the picture for the opening of
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  Speaker 2: the Initiative Kunst in het Huis on the 26th and
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  Speaker 2: 27th of September. And then I saw that it was
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  Speaker 2: actually also related to the Week of the Forbidden Book.
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  Speaker 2: It was transferred from the United States. There you have
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  Speaker 2: the banned books. It's been a long time since is
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  Speaker 2: taking action against the banning of books from schools and libraries.
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  Speaker 2: In the US it's really becoming a disaster.
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  Speaker 1: In recent times, under Trump, it's coming back again. Regularly
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  Speaker 1: in the news.
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  Speaker 2: All kinds of topics he doesn't like. LGBTQ, I don't know,
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  Speaker 2: many books that go around. Books that are anti-racist, as
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  Speaker 2: we know.
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  Speaker 1: But also adaptations to books, I think. Wasn't it from
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  Speaker 1: Pippi Langhouse that certain things weren't allowed anymore? They're still there.
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  Speaker 2: I'm always trying to do that, of course. But a
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  Speaker 2: lot of writers... All writers want that. Most of them
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  Speaker 2: don't go along with it. And that tradition has been
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  Speaker 2: around for a long time. For a few years now,
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  Speaker 2: people have been trying to organize this here in the
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  Speaker 2: Netherlands and in Flanders. And then I thought, ah, okay,
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  Speaker 2: we can bring the Bivouac library here. And in the
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  Speaker 2: context of the Week of the Forbidden Book. How did
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  Speaker 2: those books disappear? In 2012, it was 100 years ago
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  Speaker 2: that Louis Paul Bon was born here in Aalst. I
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: have known Bon for a while. He was also at
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  Speaker 2: the base of my very first publication. He recommended my poems.
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  Speaker 1: You really know him personally.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, together with my then girlfriend, my current wife. My
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  Speaker 2: girlfriend was a child at home with the family Bon.
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  Speaker 2: And yes, I wrote.
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  Speaker 1: You can hardly make use of.
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  Speaker 2: It, of course. Yes, but I didn't want to.
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  Speaker 1: No, no, no.
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  Speaker 2: No, I wasn't going to do that. But she had,
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  Speaker 2: behind my back, delivered a number of poems to Louis Bonbon.
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  Speaker 2: And on May 1st, 1979, I was 17 then, we
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  Speaker 2: went to his place. And we spent a whole evening there,
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  Speaker 2: talking about everything. Except for literature, because I was always
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  Speaker 2: waiting for him to say something about the book. No, no, no.
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  Speaker 2: And then when we went outside, when we said goodbye,
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  Speaker 2: he said, yes, but I have something to tell you.
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  Speaker 2: In his Austrian way, in his lyrical tone. And then
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  Speaker 2: he turned out to have written an recommendation letter for
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  Speaker 2: literary literature, where he knew people. to publish a few
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  Speaker 2: of those poems, because he saw a lot in the
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  Speaker 2: young man from Heerenbodige. And yes, on May 10, 1979,
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  Speaker 2: so nine days later, he passed away. So I had
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  Speaker 2: a bond with Boon too, I was a big Boon lover.
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  Speaker 2: At that time, in 2012, I had not yet written
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  Speaker 2: a hundred books, but still more than fifty. And also
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  Speaker 2: quite a few books that were translated into six or
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  Speaker 2: seven languages. I was already working professionally since 1988 as
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  Speaker 2: a writer. I was a professional writer, I never had
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  Speaker 2: another job. And then I noticed, we were doing a
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  Speaker 2: project at Stad Aalst around Louis-Borbon. I also gave lessons
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  Speaker 2: at the Academy for Creative Performing Arts. It was still
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  Speaker 2: called Literary Creation. We made a project about it and
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  Speaker 2: God and little Pirke got subsidies to do something around
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  Speaker 2: that year. And we didn't. We stood with the Literary
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  Speaker 2: Recreation for ten years and we didn't get anything. I
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  Speaker 2: then started talking to the ships of culture. I don't
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: want to mention his name anymore because it doesn't matter anymore.
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  Speaker 2: He was a socialist. Yes, he said again, the cents
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: are on. Okay. And a while later, I see, we notice,
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  Speaker 2: that in the protection committee Louis Paul Boon, based on
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: those festivities in Aalst, we have to think about the
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  Speaker 2: thoughts of Louis Paul Boon. There is, among other things,
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  Speaker 2: an ex-Flemish politician in it, who has also declared that
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  Speaker 2: Louis Balbonen was a horse-drawn pornographer and nothing more.
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  Speaker 1: And he is in the protection committee.
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  Speaker 2: He is in the protection committee.
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  Speaker 1: That is quite strange.
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  Speaker 2: With a few people we find out, because we keep
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  Speaker 2: an eye on it, and we fall from our chair.
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  Speaker 2: Because there are also business leaders in it, people from
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  Speaker 2: VOCA and so on. Writers... So I contacted the ships.
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  Speaker 2: I told them that they couldn't do it. I didn't bother.
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  Speaker 2: It had to be done in a paritarian way. It
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  Speaker 2: had to be someone from every political party. I wrote
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  Speaker 2: satirical pieces when I accused that, together with a number
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  Speaker 2: of other people. We set up an alternative protection committee
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  Speaker 2: and took action, and those were sharp satirical pieces. At
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  Speaker 2: a certain point, the ships of culture started a breeding
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  Speaker 2: procedure against me, because I was going to go out
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  Speaker 2: with my book as a teacher at the Academy for
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  Speaker 2: Polyamory Arts. and I didn't show enough respect for the
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: founding power. That was a joke, because at the college
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: of burghers and shipwreckers they once laughed at it. They
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: said in Aalst that a politician was being stung by
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: a dragon. Of course, we had also made that public
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: in the press. And there was the public opinion. Actually,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: everyone was of the opinion that we were right, that
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  Speaker 2: they heard it. So that committee was officially raised at
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  Speaker 2: that moment, because we were right. And yet they started
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: a torture procedure against me. Now, that has come out
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  Speaker 2: on a scale. And I thought it was done with it.
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  Speaker 2: It was a very annoying period, but well. And then,
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  Speaker 2: a few years later, in 2018, a number of students
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  Speaker 2: from the creative writing course say, but how come a
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  Speaker 2: large number of your books are actually missing in the library?
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  Speaker 2: I say, yes, they should have been borrowed. We look
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  Speaker 2: in the catalogue and they no longer appear to be present.
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  Speaker 2: So they were taken away. And that was a coincidence.
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  Speaker 2: All books, all children's books, well, I can't say all,
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  Speaker 2: but the children's books that were most successful, that were
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  Speaker 2: most reprinted, that were most on the list of readers.
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  Speaker 2: There was a book, in the name of the Ram,
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  Speaker 2: that won the prize for best children's book, translated into
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  Speaker 2: five languages. And in Germany it was crowned with a prize,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: an important one for children's books. That was gone. That
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: was on all the reading lists. And I hear, at
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: the ships of education and library, what was that then?
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  Speaker 2: And I hear, what is the reason for that? And
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: of course that also comes into conversation with the We
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: were in the Utopia building where the academy and the
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: library were in 2018 under the same roof. And the
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  Speaker 2: statement was, your books are no longer read, they are
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  Speaker 2: no longer borrowed and that's why they have been removed.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Only it turned out that, like all other libraries in Flanders,
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  Speaker 2: they were still read very well. The strange thing was
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: that those were books that were on read lists, that
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  Speaker 2: were printed time after time.
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  Speaker 1: It must have been difficult to find the books that
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  Speaker 1: were successful and that were on read lists. It must
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  Speaker 1: have taken a lot of time. I think they just
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  Speaker 1: saw what was borrowed the most.
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  Speaker 2: They will have numbers of that. As a reaction to
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  Speaker 2: what I had done in 2012. I also wrote a
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  Speaker 2: few satirical pieces about that. And then there was a
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  Speaker 2: second time with a tug procedure when I went further.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: I had put something on my blog about a Bermuda Triangle,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: where my books had disappeared, at the top of the
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Utopia library. I couldn't laugh about it. I said I
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: had to keep quiet, otherwise there would have been a
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  Speaker 2: new procedure in the making and I would have said
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: I don't want to take it anymore. Other people said
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  Speaker 2: what I had to say in my place. Just based
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: on numbers, if you compare the numbers of Aalst now
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  Speaker 2: and then, Aalst has 92,000 inhabitants. Brakel has 12,000. They
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: have more books there than in Aalst.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Aalst is a big city.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: In Dendermonde, I have to say. Aalst and Dendermonde are
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: a rivalry. Dendermonde is a smaller city than Aalst, but
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: they have more books. And why is that? and because
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: the recent books are no longer being bought. And they
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: still claim that every Aalster author, as it is in
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: almost all cities and municipalities, they just buy everything if
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: it is an author with a single name.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, certainly someone who does it professionally, who is really
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: well known in the world, I would say. But here, no,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: that was not the case.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Case. And that is where the preservation library comes from.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: And yes, it is now entering its second period.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: So you come here today to unpack and it is
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: ideal to sneak into it, shall we say.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'm looking now, but wait, I'm going to show it. Yes. Ah,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: that's one box. There are four of them here. I'll
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: take them out later.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I don't see you falling, Patrick.
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  Speaker 2: That was one box. There are four of them here.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: I'll take them all out later.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about a number of books.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the most famous or the most...
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: for the handlers. And one of them is The Blood
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: of the Lamb. That's your first book, which you wrote
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: in a series about a Maarten de Jonckheere. And I've
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: read that those were your most popular books for adults.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Is that true?
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think so. Actually, it's about Maarten de Jonckheere.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: He's a researcher. And he works for a television program.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: The TV program is about the great mysteries of the world,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: such as the curse of the pharaoh, or the treasure
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: of the Templars, and that sort of thing. And those were,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: of course, all the themes that I myself, which I
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: had always been busy with, and also wrote about for
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: young people, but also did a lot of things and
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: looked up. And... I wanted to make a series of thrillers,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: because the publisher thought I would be the Flemish Dan Brown.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: They saw the success of that man's book and thought
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: we should have that in Dutch as well, and then
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: they would come to you.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: They came to me because I had written a few
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: things like in the street of Brown. His Da Vinci
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Code is about the bloodline of Christ, his descendants. I
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: had already written about that earlier, in a context of
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: the mysteries of the Lamb of God. and more specifically,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: the robbery of the righteous judge.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: You're not a fan of Dan Brown, also because there
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: are mistakes in it? Because that's the conclusion that Jesus
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: had children. And one of those characters turns out to
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: be the daughter of Jesus. But did you find other
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: things around that? No, actually on purely literary grounds.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: There were students of literary creation or creative writing who
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: knew a lot. When they were with me for a
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: few years, I didn't use any of the opportunities to sweep.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: The floor with Dan Brown. Yes, I know that I
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: found a few things.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: That was a running joke. Why? Because he picked his Ninohut.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: From the Bejant League and Lincoln. So he wasn't original.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: And he even tried to hide his Browns, which I
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: actually He had a process about it. He just did
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: it because ideas are not protected by copyright. You can
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: call it a pity, but it's not always like that.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: If you come to the conclusion that Napoleon lost the
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Battle of Waterloo because he had a stomachache or a
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: cough and he couldn't concentrate... You can't claim that as
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: your own idea. That's partly a historical fact. It could
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: be that.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Someone else has the same idea at the exact same time.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: But even worse is that his style is indeed stationery novels,
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: book series, doctor's novels, castle novels. Well, the level of
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Dan Brown's style is that level. And what I like
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: to read for myself are characters, people of flesh and
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: blood that I can believe in, that is essential. So
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: I have to be able to live in that. There
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: are characters that are made of cardboard, they are not
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: living people. They spend 48 hours on a piece of
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: everything and they don't get tired. Just to say something. Yes,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: you have a point. If I also see that there
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: is a very nice madame that can play a side
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: role and there is his hero there, And then something
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: arises between those two to get a bit emotionally involved.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: But no, that's all about very intellectual things. And then
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: that hero is pulled up from the gray brain cells.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Sherlock Holmes is that too. But that's someone with small
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: psychological edges. you can see how they are connected. He
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: has a relationship with people, with Dr. Watson, a friendship relationship,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: of which people suddenly asked themselves, how did that go
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: further than pure male friendship? But you see, they are
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: living people. With Dan Brown that's not the case. And then, yes,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I have to admit, I can tell a story. But
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: I want to tell a story that is about people
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: and is not thought through. And then, on the other hand.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: So if people read your books, they will find characters
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: of flesh and blood in them. I have tried. I
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: think style is also very important. I have written both poems, less,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: but still, as prose.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: And for me, beautiful, clearly formulated sentence with sometimes a
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: bit of visual language in it and a tone that,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: in my case, might be somewhat ironic. For me that
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: is important because that makes only 50% of my reading pleasure.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Another 50% is about coming into contact with living people.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: And I missed that with him. Anyway, I wrote three books.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Blood of the Lamb is about the treasure of the Templars,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: but in relation to the mysteries of the Lamb of
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: God and the robbery of the righteous judges. And then
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: Nostradamus in Orval. Yes, that's about Nostradamus in Orval. Logically, yes.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: He sat there and made predictions. And the third was
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: the Illuminati conspiracy, which is actually about the murder of
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Albert I. Combined with the story of the seeress of Onkerzeele,
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Leonie van den Dijk, a very strange madame, who in
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: the 1930s also made visions and predictions. These are actually
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: three Belgian mysteries, which I had written about before, In
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: these books they have found their definitive form, in a
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: mixture of essays and.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Yes, because it's all really happened, or at least there
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: are really happened elements in it. How do you do
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: that research? How do you know all that? Historically, you
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: have to start searching. I have to say, really.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Happened, when did something really happen? That's just what it's
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: all about in my work. What are facts and what
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: is fiction? Things that we recognize as facts and that
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: also appear in the history books, for example that King
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Albert I fell from a rock in 1934 in Marschalledam,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: that was an accident. We recognize that as a fact,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: that's how it says in the history books, it was
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: in the newspapers. But if you go deeper into it,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: it turns out to be impossible to have been an accident.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: He only had one gaping hole in his skull. For
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: the rest, no scratch, no blood, no blue spot, nothing.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: If you fall from a rock, like the one in Marschledam.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Then you put the pieces in.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, so then you have broken arms and legs. So
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: only that makes the official version of the facts a
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: fairy tale. And then you will find out why. How
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: does that happen? So that's one thing. And how do
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: you get behind all.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: That?
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: It's all thanks to a writer's block. In 1988 I
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: became self-employed. We mainly made listening games for free radios,
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: which you will hear later. And okay, those were mostly
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: evaluations of things that already existed, but suddenly my inspiration
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: dried up. At that time I mainly wrote fantastic stories,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: such as magisterialisms, griezel stories, science fiction too, and I
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: had no more ideas. You've become so persistent. I was
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: 26 then.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: And suddenly it just doesn't happen anymore.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: No, I was.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Before, ten on a day, that was zero.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: I was looking at it. Yes. And I tried to experiment,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: but that was... That didn't mean anything to me anymore.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: And then I asked myself the question, yes, but boy,
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: what are you really interested in now? What does your
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: clock tick? A creative clock. And then I came out
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: with sagas, myths, legends, historical mysteries, books such as.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: I don't know what came out then, Humberto Eco, the
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Slinger of Foucault had written. Things like that. And I
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: haven't written anything for almost a year, but I started
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: by putting together a collection in libraries, in newspaper archives, about... books, articles,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: information about that kind of subject. I really read them up.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Starting with the just judges. The mystery, where did they stay?
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: I came to Leonie van Dijk, to the murder of
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: Albert I, to Nostradamus who was in Norval, and where
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: during the French Revolution, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette would
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: have gone to flee for the French revolutionaries, together with
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: the fortune of the Bourbons. Because with that money they
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: wanted to bring troops on their shoulders, anti-revolutionary troops. And
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: they actually wanted to go to Montmedy. Montmedy is on
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: the border of France and what was then the Austrian Netherlands,
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: which is now Belgium-Luxembourg. It was a garrison town, a
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: fortified fortress. But even if it would be too hot
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: under their feet, they could cross the border in the
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Austrian Netherlands, and Marie Antoinette was Austrian, and find shelter
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: in the abbey of Orval. It seems they tried, but
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: it didn't work. They stopped on the way and lost
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: their minds. But the carriage with the fortune of the
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Bourbons would have been there and would have disappeared there.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: And you find all those kinds of things. And yes, actually,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: from then on, I have been fairly consistent in starting
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: to collect and list all that. And especially when it
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: comes to mysteries that took place on Belgian soil. Mysterious Belgium.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Because that interested me the most. I could go there myself.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: I could do research there on the spot. I could
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: see those places. I could talk to people about that.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: So you effectively went there to look and to have conversations?
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Over the years.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: We have hung around Norval for a long time. I
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: started with a few children's books, together with Guy Didelé.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: At a certain point we were also working on a
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: children's film. We got a grant to write the script.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: We wrote the script, but we didn't find a producer.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: But that meant that you had to do a lot
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: of research. You had to look for locations to tell
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: your story. So yes, I went around a lot. I
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: also did research around Leonie van den Dijk, in Onkerzeel,
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: in Geraardsbergen. I did research on law enforcement in Ghent.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: So that was just the... I went to the place
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: of course where he, so to speak, fell from those mountains.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, so I recognized that environment there, to.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Be able to write about it. That was also the
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: big advantage of it, that it was all in Belgium.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: You didn't have to take a plane or drive.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: For hours to get there. It was very pleasant, but
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: I also have a number of books about Louis XVI,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Marie Antoinette and the Crown Prince Louis XVII, of whom
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: it is said that he died crept out of the
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: ruins of the Parisian prison during the French Revolution, there
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: are still people who claim that another child died in
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: his place and that he was able to escape. And
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: there are certain people who claim that he went underground
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: in Flanders and grew up here. As a millmaker, completely anonymous,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: And I came into contact with the family of those people,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: or they contacted me. They said, you wrote about Lodewijk XVII,
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: that's not quite right, because we are the descendants and
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: we can prove that. Here we have all kinds of
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: documents that are more than 150 years old. Come and see.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: I wrote a book about it afterwards, Louis XVII. But yes,
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing is of course very nice. But
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: that is something that you do permanently. That is a
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: permanent process of collecting things. And then the more you
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: write about that kind of subject, the more people will
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: contact you.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, if you are going to be known about.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: It, indeed. That is usually the biggest nonsense. I rarely
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: go into that, but if I do, it's really worth it.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: Like with that family, you get great stories. I don't
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: know how true that is, but it's way too interesting
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: not to tell it.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: And then the book almost writes itself, when you come
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: across such a story.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: And of course, since the invention of the internet, Because
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: I'm also from before that invention. In 1988 there was
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: of course no talk of the internet, then you had
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: to do it all with newspaper archives and books and articles.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: But since the invention of the internet, it has helped
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: a lot to do research. Then you really come up
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: with the craziest things.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: But you actually started as a youth author, because you
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: have written a lot of youth books too.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: I didn't start out as a playwright. I first wrote
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: for adults until about 1988. I wrote exclusively for adults.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: In 1985, I started to write Flemish films for young people.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: That was for 10 to 12-year-olds. Then, 25,000 copies were
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: released every week. Fortunately, I was looking for places where
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: I could wear my suit, because I had to live
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: off it. And that paid well. So I started writing
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Flemish films. In 1987 I also wrote my first children's book,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: Heroes of Life. But I didn't really find my kind
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: of book. I was looking for it. to the new
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Bart Mouillard at Averbode. And because I already wrote Flemish films,
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: and I won the John Flanders Prize for Flemish films
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: in 1987, with a story about a chasm, which takes
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: place in the Hogeveenen, which are now largely burned down,
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: around the cross of the lovers, which is designed for
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: two people who in the 19th century The Frisians died,
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: they wanted to get married and they were overrun by
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: the snow. I wrote a fairy tale about that. And
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: from Altiora they asked if I wanted to try a
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: children's novel, because Flemish movies were also published by Altiora.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: And Bart Moejaert had his duet with Falsenoten at Altiora
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: and I was looking for something along those lines. And
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: because I was still young at the time, I thought,
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: maybe we should try to make a second Bart Muyaert.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: The book was directed in that direction, but that was
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: not my direction. In the meantime, I had my writer's block.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: But that Flemish film about the Cruiser of the Beloved
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: was already from my... the first research I did on historical, mysterious, sad, legends,
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: remarkable places where a story can be told. And in
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: that way I started with a children's book about the
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: just judges, the theft of the righteous judges. But I
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: wrote it simultaneously with a book for adults. And that
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: was actually an essay that had to be read like
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: a novel. It's called Mysteries of the Lamb of God.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: And it was about the fact that the Lamb of God,
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: we think it's a highlight of Christian mysticism, But maybe
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: it's not quite like that, and it actually has a
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Keter message. And yes, you can see the grail on it.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: They say that is the miskelk in which the blood
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: of the lamb is poured. And that represents the moment
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: when in the Eucharist the wine changes into the blood
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: of Christ. Yes, but I also said the Grail. And
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: the Grail, there is an old Ketter stream that says
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: that the Grail, Sangre Vial, royal blood, that it is
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: the bloodline of Christ. As Dan Brown had looked at Bajent,
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: Liege and Lincoln, which I had already read in the meantime.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: I put that in context. And then you see the
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: panel next to the just judges. Yes, there you see
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: a number of You can say that there are temple
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: knights standing on it. The official version of the facts
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: says no, they are kings and emperors. And others say no,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: they are the vassals of Saint Nicholas or something like that.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Which is completely idiotic. But they are waving there with
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: the banner of the temple. So there are temple knights
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: on it and they are the guardians of the secret
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: of the Graal. And so I left. And so I thought, ah,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: but then the right-wing judges who are not stolen, precisely...
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: because of the content of Alamgods that would be shocking.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: And where the Nazis were also very interested. That's outside
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: the scope too. Because they wanted to come to terms
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: with all existing services, they wanted to put their own
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: Aryan service in place. So that turned out well. And
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: that's how a theory came about, but of course I
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: couldn't tell all that in that youth book. On the
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: one hand, I have hung up the story of the
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: robbery around a number of young people and told the
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: story of the robber in an exciting detective story for
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: young people. further symbolic and so on, with which I
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: also declared that theft, but went much deeper into the matter.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: I couldn't forget that in the youth book. And I
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: wrote mysteries of the Lamgots around that. And yes, that
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: was picked up by Manteau. At the beginning of the 90s,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: I published a first series of books with Manteau around
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: mysterious Belgium, you could say. And so many years later,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: with Martin de Jonck, he came to ask me at Montaud,
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: don't you want to place these themes in a more
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: novel-like setting? Because those were really some kind of excitingly
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: written essays. But yes, what happened then? The Mysteries of
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: the Lamgots had It was a success, they were sold
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: out within a short time, it was on television, because
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: I don't know what. And at Altiora I had in
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: the meantime that youth book around the righteous judges and
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: they said, oh no, we don't like that. And you
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: should be the new Bart Mouillard, who doesn't write detective stories. No,
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: we don't have to have that.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: So you wouldn't do that?
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: This is how the book about the just judges appeared
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: a year later at Davidsons Infodoc, where they took it
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: right away. And it was a great success there. In
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: the end, it has been in print for more than
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: 25 years. We have had five prints, so we have
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: also been printed a few times at other publishers. That's
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: how I was suddenly launched as a youth writer. In
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: the mid-90s, together with Guy, I started writing, because it
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: sounded good. Guy Didele and I wrote. We knew each
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: other from 1983. And we were sitting next to each
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: other at the same publishing house at the Boekenbeurs. Guy
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: had a bundle. That was his debut. I wrote murderous stories,
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: all stories that have to do with murder. And I
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: had a book called My Dear Ghostly Mate. I had
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: already published stories on the left and right and here
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: and there. In yearbooks, at Bruna, at Elsevier. I had
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: bundled those stories. We sent them in for a competition
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: for the best debut. We didn't win that prize, one
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: of the two. It was Rita Gijs with Alison, Alison,
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: a magical, realistic novel, by the way. But they wanted
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: to give us the book. And we were sitting next
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: to each other at the book fair. And Rita Gijs
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: was a very beautiful young lady. And she won that prize.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: And for her there was a whole row of men. Yes, yes, yes.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Who all came to ask for a signature. And for
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: us there was hardly anyone. And... We were there, a
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: little lost, and we got into a conversation. And within
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: a few times we were actually friends. And because I
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: was busy making listening games for free radios, and we
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: needed a lot of material, and Guy is also very
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: good at telling stories, I asked him if we could
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: do some things together. And later on, he also gave
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: a seminar at the Luisterspelen at the BRT as a screenwriter, actually,
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: a training as a screenwriter. And at a certain point,
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: the idea arose, we can't write a book together. And
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: Guy then found out, he quickly stopped writing books for adults.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: He then found out that actually his greatest strength was
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: writing for young people. In the very beginning, I published
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: a book for adults and a book for young people,
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: almost every year. But then those books for young people
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: took such a flight and I was also a bit,
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: at that moment, too busy with those youth books and
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: everything that went around with performances, with readings, There were
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: also many scenarios that I didn't write books for adults
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: for a long time. Until about 2005, that was my
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: last children's book. There is still one in 2008, but
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: that was not 100% a children's book. And then I thought,
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: it's over. Everything I can tell in children's books, I
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: have told now. I was actually not planning to write
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: any more books, because we were so busy at that
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: time with making interactive and multimedia productions. So we made CDs,
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: we made videos for companies, also for team buildings. We
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: made murder games, murder dinners, murder weekends with actors. And
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: we organize that, we make city games, city games with
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: photo books. And there was so much work involved that
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: I thought, I've had it with books. But then Geert
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: Kortebeek called me with the question, do you want to
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: write for us?
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Dan Brown.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, that version. And then my second life, I'm already
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: in my third I think, started as a writer for adults.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: I stopped reading children's books. But The Righteous Justice is
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: still a special.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Book for me. Do you have it with you?
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: No, I don't have it with me. I forgot to
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: take it. But I have another one with me. The Inferno.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, The Inferno.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: I also read it.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, I'm still alive. I hope I'll never end up
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: in a place like this. No, I wouldn't either. It's
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: a crazy book, you've already mentioned it yourself.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, I usually say that I have a very serious
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: one-hearted half. with quite a bit of irony in it,
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: and then a completely disturbed.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Because there is Claudette with the trumpet and.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, and the inferno is... well, there is the word
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: internaat in it, but at the same time inferno, and
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: the inferno is an internaat that is directly connected to hell,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: the inferno. So very strange things happen.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Very scary circumstances with children on a car. Yes, yes, yes.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: It's actually, I think, our most successful youth book, children's
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: book of GMI, because we... It's written by eight people.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: We came up with the idea of a CD of
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: the Infernaat. My daughter was born in 1990. When the
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: book came out in 2000, she was ten years old.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: I had to go to school every year. We always
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: did the same dances, the same songs. Samson and Gert,
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: I don't mind them. We thought we couldn't make a
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: school party for the whole elementary school. My brother is
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: a composer and musician.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: A kind of playbook that they could use.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: We actually made a kind of karaoke version, where you
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: got a CD with the songs sung, sung by children.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: And then you got a CD with the instrumental versions
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: of the songs on which the children could sing. And
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: then they heard how they had to sing, so you
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: didn't have to be able to read notes at all.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: And then there was a textbook, so let's say the
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: musical version. And of course that book was included in
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: that too. That book was only for the 5th and
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: 6th grade, but the school party was for the whole
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: elementary school. So for every year, his own song could
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: do something in it and so on. We sold that
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: musical package and we made it ourselves with the script.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: The book was released at a youth publisher, Abimo. But
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: we produced all the rest ourselves. As a result, that
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: musical package was in hundreds of schools, that school festival
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: was held. And that book was always included. So it
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: also ended up in all those school libraries. Yes, we
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: also had a show. I also played solo. Sometimes with
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: a group of musicians, but I also played solo around
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: the Inferno.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: You played one of those fathers who... I would have
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: liked to have seen that. Yes, I think so.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: No, that was... I talked about it as if I
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: had been at school there. I did a few songs
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: around that. Before I actually used the CD, I can't
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: sing very well, but when it comes to blues, where
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: keeping the tone is less important, well, it's mostly rhythm
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: and stuff, and you can sometimes do something almost figuratively,
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: and there is one heavy metal song, and it's about Rambo,
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: the paracommando, and it's one of the characters from the book,
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: but there's a song around it, And that was a
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: success for me too, because it can also sound pretty good.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: Because it's also a complete crazy song. It's on YouTube.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: Rambo de Paracomando.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: It's on YouTube? Then I have to... Where you bring it.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, where.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: It's only pictures you see, but you can hear the
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: song being sung. I also sing it on the CD,
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: by the way. Rambodaparacomando.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: You just said that you wrote a lot with Guy
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: Diddeley and other people. Isn't that very difficult? I can't
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: imagine how you do that. Someone has an idea and
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: you work together to come up with a plot. How
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: does it work when you have to do something together?
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, I have also written with other people. It is
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: always a bit different. But with Guy, we are very complementary.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: He is good at the things that I am less
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: good at and vice versa. And so we complement each
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: other enormously. The first challenge is that you do that
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: with someone who you know through and through and with
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: whom you get along well. Who you can also give
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: undisputed criticism. You're going to have discussions, but as long
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: as you play the ball and not the man, everyone
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: is happy. Because you always end up better. And we
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: always thought of the plot together. Someone came up with
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: an idea. But look, in the context of The Ram,
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: also one of the books we wrote together, a book
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: that was printed here and then abroad as well, It's
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: a historical thriller about the daughter of an illusionist and juggler,
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: a Jew, who worked for Hitler. Hitler didn't know he
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: was a Jew. When he found out, he had him murdered.
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: The book is about that girl who asks herself after
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: the war, how is it possible that my father worked
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: for Hitler. Was he a bad man? How did that happen?
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: Was he doing good things in that way? All those
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: kinds of things. A girl who asked herself, who was
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: my father? That's what the book was about. And we
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: were also, coincidentally, that's one of those examples where someone,
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: in this case, a whole dossier, a whole series of
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: articles from the thirties, from a monthly record or something
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: like that, provided to Guy, because we also made listening
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: games together. And he said, you should write something about that.
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: And Guy came to me with that, because he said, yes,
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: that's too much history, I can't go with that. And
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: then you start to think together, that's the history. How
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: can we find an identification figure for young people who
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: can tell that story? That's how we came up with
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: that daughter. We knew that Hannoussen, because it's about him,
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: Erik-Jan Hannoussen, but his real name was Herschel Steinschneider. We
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: knew that he had a daughter, but we didn't know
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: her name or anything, because there was nothing about it.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: But we started asking ourselves, how could that girl, who
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: for a part still knew her father, of course, until
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: the moment he was murdered, how could she look back
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: on it? And that's a concept that you come up
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: with together. And then you start plotting from there. So, okay,
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: we want to make an exciting historical thriller out of it. So,
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: we have to have a bad record. But here, not unimportant,
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: I already said that for me people of flesh and
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: blood are important. You start with the character, with that
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: girl who is looking for who my father was, still
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: in Nazi times. So she also has to do with Nazis.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: And in that way we could also tell the whole
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: story of her father. You do that together and.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Then.
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: Because you probably also have.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Something Your style, that's also a bit... Yes, that comes
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: after that.
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: Because that was the big point, but we also learned
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: that along the way. One of the two of us,
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: it was a joke we made, is Guy the writer
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: and I am the scrapper. Okay, yes. He can write
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: a much easier first version of something. I have a
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: hard time with that. Or I had a hard time
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: with it back then. Now, not anymore, that's very strange,
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: that's grown out. When the people from my school came
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: to ask me if I wanted to become the new
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: Flemish Demrao. I had to write thick books and suddenly
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: I could do that. But before that, I thought, maybe
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: because they paid me a big price. I thought to myself,
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: you're a writer of short stories, of 30-page films. I
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: thought that way too. So I had a hard time
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: writing children's novels on my own. Many of my children's
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: novels are covered frame stories. A number of stories that
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: form one big story. Not all of them, but a few.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: That's why I worked so much with other people. It
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: was hard for me to write something of a longer life.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: And Guy was a very good first-person writer. But when
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: he wrote a first-person version like that, he said to himself,
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: let me rest now. And for me, that's when the
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: work begins.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: He didn't like the editing.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: Because I'm... I have been a creative writer for 21 years.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: I have also been in the editorial department since I
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: was very young. I was a creative writing teacher. I
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: also did editorial work, even when I was quite young.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: And I also got carte blanche from Guy to rewrite
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: the whole thing. And then came the books that we
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: wrote together. That is not the style of Guy, that
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: is not mine, that is a combined style, because I
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: have really rewritten almost every sentence. And that too, too
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: much of it. Guy then gave me a chapter and
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: I did a first edition of it. And until it
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: was completely finished, I went to see it again. Then
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: it was sent to the publishing house. We had an
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: editor there who then said, I would like this and
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: I would like that. Then we went to those meetings together,
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: because he also had his ideas. Sometimes you also had
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: content or structural suggestions. You didn't always have to follow,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: but you had to be able to talk about it
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: with two people. And then I did that too. So
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: I was always... That second luik was completely for me.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: He really wrote the most important part. That's rewriting all that.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: And while I think that's just the best part. I
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: can keep on cleaning. I think it's nice, it's there,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: I can't go any further. I already have it, I
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: can only make it better.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: Here is a more recent book of yours, I think.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Greetings from the fourth dimension. Is that also something you
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: will use during the exhibition at Kunst in Huis?
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, certainly. That is actually... It belongs to
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: the Preservation Library. It's one of the new books that
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: will be published in Utopia. But at the same time,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: it's also a book that is a bit of a
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: model for the new phase in my writer's existence that
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: has been going on for a few years now. And
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: those are other things, because I have now looked at
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: those fat, fat, historical thrillers for adults. I've been experimenting
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: with black-out poetry for a long time. I have an
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: example of that. I make collages of black-out poetry, poem-writing.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: There you have an idea of it. What is black-out poetry, poem-writing?
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: You take a text, You start scanning words that speak
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: to your imagination, that prickle your imagination, and you know
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: all the rest. With tint and color, with black and black,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: with all kinds of colors, name it. And if you
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: practice that regularly, that practice, then you also develop experiences.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: I have hundreds and hundreds... Papers of this kind are full.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: Because you paste it together with an image that you find. Yes,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: so I make a collage.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I look for an image. And that story or
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: that poem, because sometimes it's a story and sometimes it's both.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: It comes in that way on paths where you consciously
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: will never come. This is your unconscious that speaks. And
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: if you start creating something, you don't know what you're
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: going to end up with. So in a historical novel,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: or in a historical thriller, I'm a plotter who discovers
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: everything beforehand. Because otherwise, it all goes down the drain.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: With these kinds of things, I just do the opposite.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: I do see what is being revealed. First I make
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: the poem and then I add a print to it,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: which in some way or another connects to it or
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: gives it a new dimension. I foam off junk markets
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: to old books, where I can put away everything and
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: use prints. Yes, I made a few bundles with it,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: Utopia Blackout, Malamar Blackout, Legends of Lowlands, which are actually
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: all saws and legends, because I used a legend book
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: as a source text, and then of course you come
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: out of there. And now I thought, what I also do,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: I have to say that, what you see here are
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: the rough versions. For me, that has never been an
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: end product. Until now, that has never been an end product.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: I then start to improve it photographically and add all
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: kinds of effects and do everything with it. And at
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: a certain point, I have so many maps on my
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: laptop with blackout poetry around certain subjects, a map. with
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: all the edited photos in it. And at a certain
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: point I thought, I'm not going to just bundle the
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: blackout poetry, I'm going to use a collage as inspiration
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: to write a very short story. Of 250 Up to
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: 300 words maximum. And that was right out of the
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: fourth dimension. Where I let my imagination run wild about
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: those prints, and actually started describing those prints. And what
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: I did after that, I still have very often... In
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: the meantime AI exists, and you can do a lot
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: with it. Graphically as well. But that's just the interesting
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: thing about it. People use AI, many people use it
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: as a prompt and that's it. No, you always have
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: to keep the control as a writer or as a maker.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: And what I start with is 100% analogue. That's cutting
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: and pasting. That's the old technique of making collages, which
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: the surrealists also did a lot. And of course, I'm
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: also half a surrealist. Or a whole one. But if
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: you can add a dimension with AI, then I think
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: that's ideal. At a certain point, there was an exchange
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: between the new print that came out with AI and
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: then I started writing that story again, because new things
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: came out of it. And Groetjes uit de Vierde Dimensie
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: is a series of... I made them all in postcard format, rectangular,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: And then the text had to appear. It all had
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: to be on one page. And yes... Actually, you could
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: say that this is... Can you call it visual art?
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: You can show it. I also have it on... Not
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: all of it, but a lot of it.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: On a larger format.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, it's a writer who is
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: still working on word-in-image, which is also the theme of...
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: On September 26th and 27th, we will present it here
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: in Kunst in het Huis.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: The exhibition at Christa in Gijzeghem. Now, what that is exactly,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: we can perhaps let Christa explain it herself.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: I am Christa Jacobs and I present to you Kunst
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: in het Huis Hanenhof.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: Come with me.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: My house in Gijzeghem is big. Misschien zelfs een beetje
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: te groot en soms ook wat leeg. Maar als beeldhouwster
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: zie ik daarin vooral mogelijkheden. Mijn eigen kunstwerken krijgen er
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: een mooie plaats tussen de kamers, de muren en de
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: verhalen die het huis met zich meebrengt. Still, there is
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: enough space to do even more. Why not share that
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: space with other artists? At certain times of the year,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: I want to open my house to artists who would
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: like to share their talents, passion and creativity with others.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: A place where different forms of art meet each other,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: where artists and visitors can enjoy, discover, talk and inspire
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: each other. Art in the house becomes reality.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: May I ask you one more thing about those poemstrips?
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: That's also a bit of a coincidence that you let
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: us decide.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: Because you are also very much involved with synchronicity. Is
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: that what you mean by that term?
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: Well, that is to apply synchronicity in your creative artistic process.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: And I stand there, I am there enormously an enormous
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: admirer of that kind of things because it's very adventurous.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: I'm going to give you an example, but we're going
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: to talk later about synchronicity. Because I can't explain it
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: in one, two, three. I'm here looking for a certain... Yes, look.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you can see it.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: What do we see? We see a man without a
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: roof somewhere in the street. Yes, this is a.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: Man without a roof. You can see that very well.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: He is writing, he is writing. He has long white hair,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: long white beard. And he is sitting at a bakery,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: Bakkerij Augustin. You can also see the postmark of the postcard.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: That's Rennes. 24.08.2025. I went on holiday in August 2025
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: to the wood of Brockeljande. That's close to the capital
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: of Britain, Rennes. My intention was to go there in
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: the footsteps of Marlène. Marlène? Merlin l'Enchanteur, the magician, who
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: would be buried in the wood of Broc-et-Liande, where in
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: all those villages, in that area, the legends live, where
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: people are still working on it, in different places. And
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: now the 5th of January has appeared, and there you
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: have the source of the eternal youth, and there are tombs.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: You can go all the way there. You can also
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: ask how much of it is fiction. It's presented as
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: a fact, but it's fiction from the 19th century. But
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: that aside, it was mostly invented back then, but those
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: legends lived on for a long time. We went to
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: a hotel, my wife and I in Rennes, and the
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: first morning I woke up in that hotel, And who
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: is sitting there on the other side of the street?
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: A figure that you can only describe as Merlin in
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: his new incarnation. The worst thing is that... Here they
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: are at Baccarat Augustin. Augustinus was also a church father
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: who wrote books. Among others his autobiography. Merlin is writing it.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: And he is sitting here in front of Clinique des Champs-Elysées,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: the clinic of the Elysian fields. He is sitting there
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: in front of that background. Come on, then you see.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: How can that be a coincidence?
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, how can that be a coincidence? If you
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: experience these things, I'm standing on my knees. I took
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: a picture of it. I edited it a little bit.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: But then you immediately have a story. And that's the
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: kind of thing I'm going to look for. I'm trying
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: to provoke that in Blackout Poetry. But that's a story apart.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: Until next time.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: Patrick, because it is of course impossible to discuss such
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: a career in an hour, we will discuss something about
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: it in the next episode. And then we will talk about,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: among other things, TV programs, Witte Kerken, Cedes and Belly.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: But also about listening games, your time at the BRT,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: and then go a little deeper into that synchronicity. Maybe
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: we'll see, but that's for the next time.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: Good, see you then.