Writersblog

Salomon Kroonenberg

Salomon Kroonenberg, Dutch writer

The Dutch programme at the International Book Fair in Beijing was cunn... >>> read more

Henk Pröpper

Henk Pröpper, Director Dutch Foundation for Literature

In two weeks’ time, the official opening of one of the largest b... >>> read more

Kai Kang

Kai Kang, Journalist China Reading Weekly

Dear Dutch publishers. The book fair is over. Perhaps you’ll now... >>> read more

Ingrid and Dieter Schubert

Ingrid and Dieter Schubert, Dutch illustrators

The days are full and long. We are incessantly bombarded with impressi... >>> read more

Michele Hutchison

Michele Hutchison, Editor De Arbeiderspers

Arriving on the stand on the first day, I’d asked a Chinese visi... >>> read more

Michele Hutchison

Michele Hutchison, Editor De Arbeiderspers

Big excitement today since we were finally meeting with Songyu from Fl... >>> read more

Ingrid and Dieter Schubert

Ingrid and Dieter Schubert, Dutch illustrators

It’s now the third day, and the first one with plenty of sun. Un... >>> read more

Kai Kang

Kai Kang, Journalist China Reading Weekly

What a great opportunity to learn about the Dutch literature for Chine... >>> read more

Salomon Kroonenberg

Salomon Kroonenberg, Dutch writer

A duck flies to and fro over the vast expanses of world ocean, despera... >>> read more

Michele Hutchison

Michele Hutchison, Editor De Arbeiderspers

‘In the era of browsing, we provide reading.’ - Slogan see... >>> read more

Michele Hutchison

Michele Hutchison, Editor De Arbeiderspers

The jewel in the crown of our collection of Arbeiderspers titles publi... >>> read more

Michele Hutchison

Michele Hutchison, Editor De Arbeiderspers

The Chinese publishers I have met during the course of my career, the ... >>> read more

Salomon Kroonenberg

Salomon Kroonenberg, Dutch writer

I have so far never been to a book fair. Nor do I know what to imagine... >>> read more

Kai Kang

Kai Kang, Journalist China Reading Weekly

Since 2006, I began writing about the Netherlands’ performance a... >>> read more

Henk Pröpper

Henk Pröpper, Director Dutch Foundation for Literature

Now that the fair is just round the corner, this is perhaps the moment... >>> read more

Michele Hutchison

Michele Hutchison, Editor De Arbeiderspers

The traffic in Beijing is horrendous, I’m sure the other blogger... >>> read more

Thomas Möhlmann

Thomas Möhlmann, Staff member Dutch Foundation for Literature

What an evening the poets and the approximately 200 onlookers present ... >>> read more


F. Springer - Bougainville

F. Springer - Bougainville

F. Springer was a diplomat who travelled the world. Several remarkable episodes from his time spent ‘living out of a suitcase’ are reflected in the lives of his characters. Like the worldly Stendhal, he takes a light and humorous approach. Although Springer favours stories that have a strong plot, these are not heroic dramas. Indeed quite a few machos and braggarts meet with prosaic deaths.

In Bougainville Tommie Vaulent, for all his bravado, drowns in the sea. Bo, also a diplomat, receives a parcel of papers from Tommie’s widow. As well as a notebook belonging to Tommie’s grandfather, containing recollections of meetings with Multatuli and Mata Hari, there are personal notes made by Tommie that cast a surprising light on Bo and Tommie’s shared past and on Tommie’s death.

Tommie Vaulant calls his friend Bo ‘The Secretary’, the kind of person who thinks of everything and notices everything. It is in light of this that Springer’s stories should be read, as involved but distant, both near and far. His work emerges from precisely this apparent contradiction. Springer’s style is ambiguous, laconic, but at the same time steeped in melancholy and longing, producing the clear, quiet voice that won his novels such acclaim.

Biography

F. Springer was greatly admired both as a diplomat and as a writer. Novels and short story collections published in the seventies, So Long New York (1974) and Overseas Business (1974), brought him recognition from reviewers, but it was the novel Bougainville which reached a broader public. His style is remarkable, reminiscent of the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald, but with his own typically ironic perspective on tragic subject matter.

Quotes

  • ‘These apparently loose threads are woven together in an ingenious and above all natural manner.’ – Het Parool
  • ‘Springer wrote disturbing novels about lost wanderers through time, people who have never felt truly at home anywhere in this world.’ – Eindhovens Dagblad