Category Archives: literature

Indo-Dutch fiction

One of the last fiction books I read last year was Alfred Birney‘s De Tolk van Java. As far as I know the book has only appeared in Dutch – I am writing this 1 January 2020- but an English translation will be available in a few months and the translation will be The Interpreter of Java. It won the Libris prize for best Dutch novel in 2017 and there are good reasons for that: it has a compelling story, the character description is impeccable, there is a wealth of interesting information on the history and culture of Indonesia and the Indonesian community in the Netherlands and the use of the Dutch language is superb.

Dutch army fighting back pro-Independence Indonesians (Wikipedia)

The book is about the complex relation between an “Indo”, a half-Indonesian, half-Dutch man, and his children, in particular one of them. Chapters switch from a narrative told by the father and those told by one of his children. The father was born in Java of a Chinese-Indonesian mother and an Indonesian-born Dutchman. Chapters switch from his life during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia to that in the Netherlands, back to Japanese occupation and the war of Independence. Things keep going back and forth between those sections and the traumatic experience his children and wife had with him in the Netherlands.

For me it was also interesting to connect some of the facts and impressions I learnt about the Japanese occupation of Indonesia with those I read four years ago in Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Styles and characters are different but both books helped me to puzzle together a bit of the history of a region we do not know much about in the Americas or Europe. Both books are fiction but the historical backgrounds they portray seem to be very accurate, as far as I have been able to judge by delving into a few reference sources here and there. There are many layers in De Tolk van Java: racism in both the Netherlands and Indonesia, identity, ethnicity, family violence, love.

Mendoza’s Gurp

Eduardo Mendoza is one of the most recognised Spanish authors in the last decades. I have read a couple of his books: La Verdad sobre el Caso Savolta, La Ciudad de los Prodigios, Riña de Gatos, el Laberinto de las Aceitunas and now Sin Noticias de Gurp.

I have to say: all his books show an impecable command of the Spanish language. Just because of that they are good. He shows a rich and yet natural vocabulary. He has a good sense of humour. Gurp was conceived as a kind of light-hearted comedy, a pseudo-science fiction book.

I have to own up I was not very impressed. Perhaps I have too many expectations after reading a lot of real science fiction and that wonderful mix of science fiction with comedy that was the incredible Douglas Adams. Still, I missed the element of surprise, some original trait…it was, all in all, a bit childish. Mendoza, very humbly, concedes in the forewords he did not expect that book to be as succesful as it actually became. To his surprise – and to mine – it is his most popular book among all readers.

My favourite Mendoza books are still La Verdad sobre el Caso Savolta and, undoubtedly, La Ciudad de los Prodigios. If you speak Spanish well, I recommend you both of them.


Russian future and Nigerian past

I haven’t read much fiction lately. Two books stand out: Метро 2033, a Russian science fiction book by Glukhovsky, and Half of a Yellow sun, by Nigerian Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The first book was entertaining. The author has a good command of his language. Anyone who has been to the underground in Moscow or Saint Petersburg will see those places differently after reading this novel.  Still, I had some issues with the feasibility of the  demographics portrayed there. Even if it just a science fiction – or rather a fantastic fiction book, I kept thinking about how realistic it was they would keep such dynamics and that within the area of Moscow’s underground.

I like Adichie’s book much more. It was for me a revelation. There was romance but it was not kitsch. There was a lot of stuff I learnt about Nigeria’s XX century and about the main ethnic groups there. It is, of course, only one instance of an Igbo version. Still, I think Adichie tried to do justice to the different groups.

The book whetted my appetite for more Nigerian literature.

Literatura del Sur-Sur: Richard Flanagan y su viaje al Norte

Durante mi estadía en Sídney por la conferencia del KDD me tomé un poquito de tiempo para husmear en un par de librerías australianas. Uno de los libros que compré fue uno del conocido escritor Richard Flanagan. Se trata de la novela The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Para mí resultó ser una de las mejores novelas que haya leído en 2015.

Flanagan presenta a un héroe a regañadientes: el cirujano Rodrigo Evans, un hombre marcado por su tiempo en el ejército, en especial por la experiencia como prisionero del ejército japonés durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

Me pareció absolutamente fascinante la manera cómo Flanaga consiguió describir el estado mental de personajes tan variados como Evans, su gran amor, los japoneses que lo torturaron y los otros soldados australianos que trabajaron para la construcción del ferrocarril de Birmania.

El lenguaje que  utiliza Flanagan para describir ciertos momentos sensuales o terríficos de los diversos personajes es conciso, elegante. Hay descripciones cortas pero muy detalladas de procesos o sentimientos que rara vez son tomados en cuenta por otros escritores. The_Narrow_Road_to_the_Deep_North_(novel)

Algunas referencias se me antojaron algo patrioteras. No estaba seguro de si se trataba de pensamientos del narrador o solo el intento de Flanagan de mostrar el fuerte sentimiento nacionalista – a veces extremo – de ciertos australianos. En cualquier caso, no debería importar la posición real del autor mismo, pero no pude escapar de cierta molestia. Aun así, el libro en general me pareció absolutamente exquisito.