Ramsey Nasr
- Opening programme 'Open landscape - open book'
Date: Tue 30 August Time: 06.00 pm Venue: National Centre for the Performing Arts - An evening of poetry
Date: Fri 2 September Time: 07.00 pm Venue: Trainspotting
Life and work
Ramsey Nasr (b. 1974, Rotterdam) is a poet and author, actor and director. In 2000 he made his poetry debut with the collection 27 gedichten & geen lied (‘27 Poems & No Song’), which was nominated for both the C. Buddingh’ Prize and the Hugues C. Pernath Prize. A year later came his debut as a prose writer with the novella Kapitein Zeiksnor & de twee culturen (‘Captain Sourpuss & The Two Cultures’), followed by Twee libretto’s (‘Two Libretti’) in 2002. He then moved to de Bezige Bij, where he published his second book of poetry, onhandig bloesemend (‘awkwardly flowering’) in the spring of 2004. This collection, awarded the Hugues C. Pernath Prize, went through several reprints. Nasr was named city poet of Antwerp in 2005 and quickly won the hearts of the Flemish people. He aimed from the start to write poems of interest not only to the people of Antwerp but to an audience far beyond the boundaries of the city. On January 27th 2009 Nasr became Poet Laureate of the Netherlands, an office he will hold for four years. Most of his poetry is collected in Between lily and hydrogen bomb. The early years (2009).