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The Dutch Foundation For Literature has the task of supporting writers and translators, and of promoting Dutch literature abroad. It invests in the quality and diversity of literature through grants for writers, translators, publishers and festivals, and contributes to the production and distribution of Dutch and Frisian literature at home and abroad.

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Henk Pröpper

Pröpper’s mental journey begins in the spring of 2020, when recovering from major heart surgery, he walks through the empty Paris streets. The city is in lockdown, and Pröpper takes short walks in the hour a day that Parisians are allowed outside within a one-and-a-half kilometre radius of their homes. But the emptiness of the streets does not mean that there is nothing to see, on the contrary. In his immediate vicinity he discovers memorial plaques, monuments and statues which honour and commemorate famous and less famous Parisians. They form a kind of library, filled with stories and memories that are triggered. He reflects on his own life, remembers books that strongly affected him, and searches for the keynotes of his existence.First of all, that has been literature: the children’s books he devoured as a boy, then the books of Maigret, and later those of Balzac, Hugo and Flaubert. Associations and thoughts alternate, memories arise, observations and feelings are shared: on the attraction of the big city; the soulless ruin that once was the magnificent Notre Dame; Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony; a Louise Bourgois artwork in the Tuileries. The Second World War, which determined and shaped Pröpper’s way of thinking, makes him reflect on commitment, courage and betrayal. And so the reader accompanies the writer through Paris’s present and past: meanderingly contemplative, searching for joie de vivre, eloquent and extremely erudite, but averse to pretension and with a subtle sense of humour.He speaks to no one, everything is reduced to its essence. He is a sick man, confronted with decay and upheaval, who must face his own vulnerability. This is precisely why he seeks solace in the beauty of the city, and in that of literature. The power of literature allows him to make an urgent appeal to the reader: Pröpper urges independent and original thinking, which makes this essay, though very personal, anything but limited to one man’s view.

Book

In a silenced Paris, in the calm of a city spellbound by a pandemic, the protagonist of 27 Beats per Minute reflects on the pillars of his existence and the matters that have shaped him.

27 Beats per Minute

Non-Fiction

Original title Hartslag 27

In a silenced Paris, in the calm of a city spellbound by a pandemic, the protagonist of 27 Beats per Minute reflects on the pillars of his existence and the matters that have shaped him. Through his reflections, the reader is transported across the city, taking in European literature and history along the way. ‘I walk through the streets and alleys, aimlessly and without direction, in this alienating setting. The city is entranced by Covid-19 and me by my mind’s musings.’

Jurriën Hamer

In this confronting debut, jurist and philosopher Jurriën Hamer ventures where others turn a blind eye. He argues that free will doesn’t exist, and examines how we are coaxed into believing otherwise. In this he makes a distinction between libertarian free will, or what we think of as absolute free will, and reflective free will, which maintains that our choice of action is always limited and determined by circumstance. When we reject the former, the concept of justice gains new meaning in a world where nobody ‘deserves’ to be punished and success is the product of luck.Along the way, he shows us the implications for the justice system, personal morality and the idea of social engineering, using numerous concrete examples and thought experiments. Written in a clear and accessible style, this is a provocative read suitable for a broad audience.

‘Jurriën Hamer shows that serious philosophy doesn’t make life easier, but more difficult. Read this book at your own risk, because once you’ve read it you won’t be able to unread it.’

Waarom schurken pech hebben en helden geluk

For centuries philosophers have debated the existence of free will. Biologists and neurologists have declared it an illusion for decades. The evidence against free will grows with every year: we are a product of our genes, our history and our surroundings. And yet this myth seems to hold more influence than ever – in our criminal justice system, our economy and our quest for happiness.

Iki Freud

Not every man has an Oedipus complex. Not every man fantasized fighting a silent battle with his father as a boy to secure his mother’s exclusive love, finally giving her up for the sake of an adult love life with another woman. There are also men who followed a different course. Some fantasize about matricide and continue to struggle with their mother’s influence throughout their lives. In a normal situation, a mother does not need her child to survive. Processing this truth is necessary for the child to become an independent individual. However, if the mother does need the child as a psychological prop, it is unhealthy: a co-dependency is created, which can lead to perverse behaviour.Iki Freud insightfully shows how this can be expressed. Perversion involves acting out fantasies in a ritualistic and compulsive manner. Stereotypical sexual play can offer protection against a fear of merging with one’s partner and channel uncon­scious anger against the maternal figure. Perversion is a tool for maintaining emotional balance. Drawing on the works of Proust and Freud as well as anonymised examples from her own practice, Iki Freud paints a picture of men who have been unable to detach themselves from their mothers. Famous passages such as the bedtime kiss episode in In Search of Lost Time are analysed. The child needs a bedtime ritual, but the mother refuses, fearing to spoil him.. A perverted mother-son relationship continues in later love life.For Iki Freud, Proust’s homosexual protagonist is a perfect complement to Freud’s model of the damaged heterosexual child. While Freud developed the concept of symbolic parricide, Proust thematised the concept of matricide: sons who make a pact with their mothers and struggle with it throughout their lives.‘It all doesn’t have to go wrong and lead to trauma,’ explained Iki Freud in an interview. ‘Mothers are interested in how they interact with their sons, the influence they have. And for adult sons struggling with these kinds of issues, the book can offer insights into their inner world and how it is shaped. After all, the forms that love takes, are mainly learned from the cradle.’

‘Human relationship problems in a nutshell; whether it’s girlfriends, family ties, male-female relationships or homosexual contacts, it always revolves around the same thing: the longing for eternal happiness.’

Hamber dor ta po landerstand bla bla quasi taal lorem ipsum antiquariaat horizontaal verticaal diagonaal vissen haai orka luis noten zaden pitten

Mannen En Moeders

A book for and about sons but also for the mothers of those sons. Where Sigmund Freud once described the way men interacted with their fathers, Iki Freud turns her gaze to their mothers. Sons can also develop a symbiotic bond with their female parent. This leads to identification with the mother instead of the father and is often correlated with either homosexuality, or sexual perversion – which is problematic when it becomes compulsive and exclusive.

Men and Mothers

Maxim Februari

According to Februari, humanity now finds itself sandwiched between two systems. On the one hand, the urgency of the climate crisis demands drastic government action which democracy seems ill-equipped to deliver. On the other hand, advancing data-driven technology promises to solve humanity’s problems, and increasingly is being entrusted with decision-making in all aspects of life. These machines, working in a vast and opaque network of communicating devices, are being given license to derive their own rules and norms. After all, they ‘know’ everything about us.The question is whether, in our techno-enthusiasm, we are losing the ability to publicly contest these norms and determine our own behaviour. For Februari, a democratic society exists by virtue of public debate, and yet with the innovations of digital technology, the idea of political representation has come under pressure. The ability to communicate instantly has empowered citizens but also exposed them to manipulation. Governments, meanwhile, are handing power to tech companies whose technologies – and moral assumptions – they have little insight into. The danger is that we turn to intelligent technology that eliminates disagreement entirely by viewing people as data. We’re not far from a future where public decisions are made for us, based on data about our preferences.

‘Never before has such an accessible – and so important! – text been written about rampant information technology eroding the foundations of citizenship and the democratic rule of law.’

Digitalization is also transforming our justice system in unprecedented ways. More and more we are being forced to obey rules rather than encouraged to follow them. Take technology that prevents cars from speeding. Handy, sure, but one can also wonder whether laws are still laws if it’s impossible to break them. We must think critically about how such technologies can be repurposed, especially when algorithms are being used to detect and predict crimes. One of the main challenges of digitalization, and its application here, is that the law is ultimately about justice, not administration and efficiency.Far from pessimistic about the future, Februari describes a historic transition which requires us to rethink fundamental philosophical questions – and preferably, together: ‘Too much knowledge about the future threatens to get stuck with experts and at universities; I think it would be good to retrieve that knowledge and have a timely public conversation about the changes awaiting us.’

‘Maxim Februari doesn’t deal in cut-and-dried answers, though for this very reason it’s to his credit that he bravely feels his way through the dark. He builds up his reasoning in small but sure steps and illustrates them with anecdotes, such as about voting with your toothbrush.’

Doe zelf normaal

In liberal democracies, human behaviour is regulated by the justice system. This way of establishing and maintaining norms is now being replaced with data-driven technologies in the rush to meet simultaneous crises. Written with erudition and wit, 'Give Us a Break', by judicial philosopher Maxim Februari, examines how this digitalization is rapidly transforming democracy, basic rights and the rule of law in practice.

Give us a break

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Dutch Fiction Autumn 2023

The Netherlands and Flanders will make their joint appearance as guests of honour at the Leipzig Book Fair 2024, with 'Anything but Flat' as their motto.

Alles Außer Flach

Dutch Non-Fiction is distributed to international editors and publishers.