A UNIQUE MOMENT NOT TO BE MISSED
AT THE NLS CONGRESS IN GHENT (17-18 MAY 2014)
ÉRIC LAURENT
meets
TOM LANOYE
Link to register for the NLS Congress
Tom Lanoye (born 1958) is Flanders’s
most famous, notorious, and heterogeneous writer. He lives in both Antwerp (Belgium) and Cape Town (South Africa).
He is a poet, columnist, playwright,
novelist, performer, and polemicist. He has mastered all aspects of writing
with an unparalleled virtuosity, and for decades he has been a voice that
cannot be ignored in Belgium,
the Netherlands,
and beyond. He has received many literary awards, and in 2013 his complete
works were awarded with the prestigious Constantijn Huygens’ Prize.
Flanders got to know this jack-off-all-trades in 1983 with his debut novel Slagerszoon
met een brilletje (Butcher’s son with
glasses). Then followed Alles moet weg (Everything must go) and Kartonnen dozen (Cardboard boxes). In Het goddelijke
monster (The divine monster),
Zwarte tranen (Black tears), and
Boze Tongen (Angry tongues) he
skewers in an inimitable way the decline of Belgium owing to the ruthless
businessmen and politicians in a changing Europe.
This trilogy was recently produced for national television. Het derde
huwelijk (The third marriage) casts
a harsh light on multicultural Flanders and
the migration politics of ‘Fort
Europe’. In Gelukkige
Slaven (Happy slaves) he takes
aim at—among other things—the recent banking crisis. In the extremely personal Sprakeloos
(Speechless)
he describes the death of his mother who, after a stroke, suffered from aphasia,
the worst nightmare for a writer. In the meantime, he also published Heldere
Hemel (Clear sky), the Dutch
‘Bookweekgift’ of which 833,000 copies are printed; he is only the fourth
Fleming to have this honour. http://www.lanoye.be/tom/translations
As
playwright he wrote Ten Oorlog (To
War), an eleven-hour epic adaption of Shakespeare’s histories. He inscribed
Risjaar Modderfokker den Derden (Richard Motherfucker the third) into the
collective memory of Flanders. Then followed Mama
Medea (Mama Medea),
Mefisto for ever (Mephisto forever),
Atropa, De Russen (The
Russians), Bloed en Rozen (Blood
and Roses), and his own interpretation of Shakespeare, Mann, Euripides, Chechov, and so on. In March 2014 his Hamlet vs. Hamlet
premiered in Amsterdam. Lanoye’s Hamlet was a collaboration between
Toneelhuis (Antwerpen) and Toneelgroep Amsterdam. He is an esteemed guest at
the Avignon theatre festival. ‘Bloed en
Rozen’ (‘Blood and roses’) was performed in 2011 at the cour d’Honneur!
He is also a
gifted performer. With Sprakeloos op de planken (Speechless on stage) he toured in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Paris. A couple of years
earlier he went wild in a show the title of which honoured him: Woest (Ferocious). As the first city poet of Antwerp he set the tone. His
undeniable presence reached all the way to the Boerentoren (a building in Antwerp), where he hung a
love poem to the Cathedral of our Lady (see picture below).
In 1996 Tom
Lanoye and his partner René Los signed the
first cohabitation agreement for a gay couple in Belgium. This received a
lot of attention in the press in Belgium and abroad, and it paved the way for
same-sex marriage in Belgium. It is an example of his never ceasing progressive
engagement. In essays, pamphlets, and television performances he passionately
and with a mastery of language battles against all sacred cows. For gay marriage, for an abortion law,
against the advance of nationalism, against racism… In 2000 he was a one-time
candidate for Agalev (the Green Party) in his battle against the Vlaams Blok (an
extreme right-wing party that was very successful at that time).
Some texts translated into English and French : http://www.lanoye.be/tom/translations
