Even after a year of prize winning professors at UCLA, it wasn’t every day that I got the chance to attend an event with the likes of Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway, the Guest of Honor at this year’s Frankfurter Buchmesse, Margaret Atwood, recently announced Booker Prize winner 2019, and renowned award-winning authors Maja Lunde, Elif Shafak, Colson Whitehead and Ken Follett.

Amidst the enormity, I most enjoyed talking to one of the Norway writers who was concentrating on things really small. Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson, a Norweigian scientist and the author of Buzz, Sting, Bite: Why We Need Insects (Simon and Schuster), described our dependence on insects along with fascinating facts about seemingly normal creatures like the house fly. Did you know it has tongues underneath its feet?

“When they walk on your food,” she said, “that’s because they want to taste, ‘Maybe this is something nice for me to eat’.”

The fair was really nice, albeit very professional. With publishers promoting particular ways of thinking, some for the greater good, many just for profit via books on an incredible variety of subjects inviting my mind to wander, it didn’t take long to realize I was in a two-birds-one-stone situation, since one of my best friends from the European School was studying nearby in Leipzig.

The more I thought about Ben and my childhood growing up in Brussels, the more I longed for the old days at the European School with its diverse and very open-minded culture, due to all the different languages and ways of thinking from original sources (kids!) from different countries. In my Brussels days, my friends were from Germany, France, England, Greece…mostly ‘mixed’ like me. We shared our common ground because we were all different, but living in the same place. Ben is half German and half Nicaraguan, from Brussels, like me.

I decided to sacrifice a few hours of sleep to go see Ben for a night in Leipzig. The train took about three hours. I watched the green countryside, garden houses and occasional industrial buildings go by as I read my books. My mind kept wandering to what a long time it had been since I’d seen Ben–almost four years–and then he was there in front of me! We were really happy to see each other. Ben hadn’t changed much; he’s still a student. I told him about the power of the self and what I believe to be true inside, not according to the book or just what’s outside in current society, or only possible scientifically according to certified organizations. We stayed up all night, then slept for two hours before I had to catch the train. On the way back, I told myself, it’s OK if we don’t see each other every day, but whenever I get the chance to see him in these types of situations, I will.

The post Traveling to the Frankfurt Book Fair and on to see a Brussels friend appeared first on Brussels Express.

I meet Marek on a chilly afternoon in downtown Brussels. He has spent a few weeks as a writer in residence at Passa Porta House of Literature, and I’m curious to know what his routine has been like while living here. I want to pry into his creative universe. I want know what magic he’s been able to find in the city.

“I want to show you something,” he says, after reflecting on my question for a while. “I believe it’s one of the places that captures the essence of my being here.”

We walk on Rue de Flandre until the traffic light, then cross Rue du Marché aux Porcs. The brown and yellow leaves lie scattered and crushed on the pavement. “This is it,” he says, as we reach the alley of Rue de la Cigogne. “In the afternoons, after working on the manuscript, I would come here for some quiet. Whenever I needed to recharge, this place right here is where I would come.”

The alley is empty. Only a few bicycles stand next to the water pipes, the trees that have crept and followed a trail close to the walls, and Marek looks at all of this as if there lay a secret meaning he wanted to decipher.

During his residency he also enjoyed going out for a run on Antoine Dansaert and up Mont des Arts, past the Place Royal and further into the park where he would try to untangle his thoughts while giving a few laps around, nodding from time to time to other fellow runners.

Marek had been to Brussels before, in 2017, when he attended the Passa Porta Literary Festival and talked about his book Mapa Anny (The Map of Anna). The book is not only a multifaceted portrayal of the main character, Ana, but also an adventurous exploration form. Conceived as a set of stories told from different points of view, The Map of Anna continue to reveal the multi-dexterity of Šindelka as a poet, novelist, and short story writer.

The Dutch edition of Material Fatigue is on the short list for the Europese Literatuurprijs (European Literature Prize). In the Czech Republic it won the prestigious Magnesia Litera Prose Book of the Year Award, and when I ask about the genesis of the book he recounts, as if it were yesterday, how on a sunny day in 2015 he had been playing with his first daughter, a toddler, and the news of a truck with 70 dead people in Austria appeared in the news. All of them migrants.

“I was shocked,” Marek says. “I had my daughter sitting in my lap. She was babbling something, chewing a toy, and we were enjoying our time, feeling happy. And then the news arrived. I thought, How could this be happening in Europe?”

The shock, he continues, only grew when he started to see the reactions in the Czech Republic. “Some people were even celebrating it. That’s how far the media and some politicians had gone. That made me really angry and sad at the same time. I felt I had to do something about it.”

Shortly after, he began interviewing migrants and refugees, mainly from Syria and Afghanistan. But soon he realized he couldn’t possibly write the book as a documentary retelling someone else’s story. He chose to use all of those experiences to inform the novel, to create the fictional world of the two main characters. “Because if someone came to me and asked, ‘What’s the most horrible thing that has happened to you?’ I wouldn’t do it, I wouldn’t tell them. For my novel I didn’t want to use someone else’s suffering just for effect.”

Material Fatigue tells the story of two brothers, fleeing from an unnamed country which is being ravaged by war. They’ve lost their home and family. They’ve lost their sense of direction. Professional traffickers have smuggled them into Europe. At the start of their long journey they get separated. The novel contains passages that suffocate, narrow spaces that push the limits of what many readers can tolerate.

“I’ve received letters from readers saying that they cannot finish the book because they feel claustrophobic,” he says. “I’m totally fine with that. I just wanted them to experience, even if for a short while, what it feels like to be in a place like that. A refugee camp.”

In the Czech Republic he’s faced difficult moments with people who disagree with his ideas. After the success and media attention that followed the Magnesia Litera Prose Book, he received hundreds and hundreds of hate emails. He had to disable the contact form on his webpage.

“There is too much disinformation these days. The Czech Republic accepted twelve asylum seekers in total. Twelve. Where is the Islamic invasion many politicians like to talk about?”

These days the situation in the Czech Republic has slightly improved as many people have realized that the data and information provided by certain politicians was misleading. They wanted to use the migration crisis to their advantage. Fear can be a powerful currency in politics.

Can literature help us understand each other better, the competing emotions and contradictory behaviors each and every one of us is susceptible to?

In the study where he has been working in his latest project, he tells me about someone close to him who, in the midst of anti-migrants campaigns in Prague, decided to buy a gun. “It’s totally crazy, you know, because I know he is a good person. That’s how complex human beings are.”

Despite the current climate of polarization in different parts of Europe and the US, Marek continuous to focus on his work. He remains hopeful. “It might be naive to think that a book can change how people live but that’s what I can do, and so I choose to do it.”

Before I leave his study on the Rue du Vieux Marché aux Grains, I ask him what souvenir will he take with him when he boards the plain for Prague. “A sore throat,” he replies, and we both laugh. “I take with me the feeling of the colorful and lively city Brussels is. People of all cultures and backgrounds live right here in the center of town, which is not the case in the center of Prague, I can tell you that much. Brussels offers a cultural mix in a city that’s unique.”

The post « I take with me the feeling of the colorful and lively city Brussels is » — Marek Šindelka at Passa Porta appeared first on Brussels Express.

Since a young age, Noteboom was eager to be in the center of world affairs. He saw the Velvet Revolution in Budapest, the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile, the fall of the Berlin wall, and he has written about them in great detail.

A recipient of the renowned peace prize, the Pegasus Prize, the Anne Frank Prize, the Aristeion Prize, and multiple other literary prizes, Nooteboom let the audience come along with him on some of his life adventures and journeys as he read various excerpts from his work.

Travel has offered him the possibility to participate in many monumental, life evolving events. It has also given him the freedom to create new identities: “When I travel, I can have more lives than just the one, more identities, more stories. Traveling is like meditating. In the moment, one doesn’t belong to anything, and traveling becomes a commute between two worlds.”

He described the expression Das ewige Pilger des fehlendes which could be translated as forever being the pilgrim that misses one of the worlds. At the same time, he continued, if he were to remain in one place, he would sense a fracture if staying at home.

Known to be playful with his writing, Nooteboom has described the existence of mountains in the Netherlands – a notoriously flat terrain. But because the Netherlands is a small country, he has extended his story telling from the Netherlands on to the Alps, to Greece, Spain, and to many other destinations. He now divides his time between Amsterdam, Menorca, a winter escape in Germany, as well as Venice, a place he associates with the abundance of art.

“The old power behind Venice has disappeared except for traces of it in the buildings, the architecture,” he said. In Venice, where cars are not allowed and there are few bikes, “walking is like thinking. One has to think and one has to walk. It’s quite simple. In Venice, it is possible to dive into art and just disappear, escape in the beauty and mesmerizing of seeing. Art moves us forward.”

He also spoke affectionately of the Belgian writer Hugo Claus, a friend whose contributions spanned the genres of poetry, drama, the novel, as well as of painting and film directing, and who chose to die by euthanasia.

Nooteboom described him as someone who remained true to himself until the very end, as “someone who lived with unyielding self-confidence – perfect self-assurance”. Noteboom recalled the festive yet melancholic atmosphere at Claus’s home the last week of his life. “We drank glass after glass of champagne while he was dying. The drama was underneath the surface of that joy.” But it was Claus’s humor, his knowledge, the traits that stayed on and inspired Noteboom as a writer.

In Spain he looks at the sky and he likes to believe he has bought a parcel in the sky. “I never stop to be amazed. At every single aspect in the universe. That’s how I like to observe the world.”

Flagey, Goethe-Institut Belgien, De Bezige Bij, Tropismes, Paard Van Troje, Buchfink

The post « In Venice it is possible to dive into art and just disappear » — Cees Noteboom in Brussels appeared first on Brussels Express.

Suzanne Lilar was born on 21 May 1901 in Ghent, the Flemish city in northwestern Belgium. Although her education was predominantly in French, she created an aura of mysticism around Flemish. The depths of the soul, euphoria, God, love, all these she explored passionately by delving into the poetry of Hadewijch, a 13th-century mystic from Brabant. In Soixante ans de théâtre belge, an essay published in 1952, Suzanne Lilar calls for a revival of the Flemish cultural heritage, characterized by idealism, sensuality, and a shrewd observation of individual feelings. The same year, she also becomes a member of the Royal Academy of French Language and Literature, which further highlights her ethnic duality.

A feminist at heart, Lilar was the first woman to practice law in Antwerp in 1926. The emancipation of women is a recurrent topic in her writing, albeit without radicalism lurking within. In Le Couple (1963), she ponders conjugal love and the status of women. To her, eros is not simply passion, which is the lowest rank, but an endeavour towards completeness, une tentative d’atteindre l’absolu. Love is a sacral union. In comparison to Simone de Beauvoir, who deconstructs patriarchy and rejects the idea of a « feminine nature » —One is not born but becomes woman— Suzanne Lilar defends the female body, and marriage and motherhood if they are freely chosen.

Domesticity remains a form of oppression for de Beauvoir either way because a woman will always be seen as the Other, as an object. In Le Malentendu du Deuxième Sexe (1969), a critical analysis of de Beauvoir‘s Le Deuxième Sexe (written twenty years earlier), Lilar accuses her of misogyny. Her main objection is that the French thinker alienates women from their own uniqueness.

It is the myth of Androgyne that permeates Lilar‘s view of the dynamics of love, and underpins gender equality. Androgyne, a being with female and male traits, first appeared in Plato‘s The Symposium. As punishment for defying the will of gods, Zeus split these humans in two, and ever since, they long to reconnect with their other half. Two souls rejoicing in a primordial reunion. In Lilar‘s quest for unity, even Don Juan is being partially humanized (Le Burlador, 1945).

Lilar‘s disdain for conflict is flushed out in À Propos de Sartre et de l‘Amour (1967), directed at the existentialist‘s theory of love as struggle. According to Jean-Paul Sartre, love is a collision of desires to own the other that endangers our freedom, the highest value of all. There is always the fear that romance or the lust for possession will disappear, and this renders love vulnerable. Lilar‘s lover, on the other side, jumps into the unknown as a way of transcending the ego.

A surrealist view of the self, piles of images scattered around, might not have been to the liking of the Belgian writer, but she nonetheless attracted the admiration of the father of Surrealism André Breton, with Journal de l’analogiste (1954), a meditation on poetry and its power to convey beauty.

In her apartment at Sablon, a chic neighbourhood in Brussels, carnival masks in pastel colours watch her closely from the paintings hanging on the wall. Asked about their symbolism, she said that they are imbued with magical protective powers. They are part of life, where fantasy and reality intertwine. The kind of duality she enjoyed transcending.

The post The Belgian writer Suzanne Lilar: A Feminist’s Quest for Unity appeared first on Brussels Express.

The description in her book tells us also that she worked ‘in car body repairs, in the best fish and chip shop in Brighton, and as a gofer in a comedy club.’ And now her novel, Sea of Bones, is out, published by Agenda Press on 1 July, and it’s a humdinger that starts with a terrible event.

Suicide is always a shock for those who knew the victim. Such ghastly events can also trigger waves of guilt. (Could I have done more? Why didn’t s/he speak to me?) And disbelief. O’Donoghue (full disclosure; she is a fellow – and prolific – contributor to Brussels Express) skilfully and plausibly evokes such sentiments, leading her protagonist into an increasingly dark and desperate world. In what is part-psycho drama, part thriller, part noir detective novel, Sea of Bones takes the reader from the incestuous rivalry of politics in London to the enigmatic Moray Firth coast and on to the sleazy cocaine-smudged underbelly of the Manchester club scene.

Juliet MacGillivray is chief of staff to Fiona Goldman, radical feminist leader of the Progressive Alliance. Following a press exposé, Goldman’s career nosedives and, after an electoral disaster for the Alliance, speculation grows that MacGillivray will replace her. Juliet’s thoughts, however, are elsewhere, following the apparent suicide through drowning of her favourite niece, Beth, off the Moray Firth. On trips up to Inverness for the funeral and to empty the summer house on the coast where Beth had been staying, MacGillivray’s guilt (because of unavailability through her intensive politicking in London) and doubts (because Beth’s behaviour was so unlike the young woman that Juliet thought she knew) get the better of her and, aided and abetted by her photographer husband, Declan Byrne, she starts to dig and the story suddenly rockets off… To go further would be to give away a sophisticated plot that takes a number of shocking turns (that at first sight seem unexpected but are cleverly pre-figured in the text) and which ultimately brings the reader back to the ‘Sea of Bones’ in the title (the Moray Firth) where, Juliet discovers, everything began and everything ended in ways she simply could never have imagined.

Sea of Bones is richly atmospheric. O’Donoghue gives a great sense of place. Her characters are closely observed and the whole story simmers and blurs, like the mists and fogs of Manchester and the Firth – and like the mental illness that runs in the MacGillivray family. The novel is larded with wonderful turns of phrase. A girl stabs her toe into the water ‘like a bird prodding a snake.’ Trees whisper between themselves. Nightclub bouncers ‘drizzle’ polite remarks over VIP guests. A politician’s proffered hand is ‘a sinewy, liver-spotted wedge of flesh.’ And syncopated footsteps are like ‘Frank Sinatra keeping his own time.’

And what about Brussels and the Belga in all this? ‘Well, obviously, it’s not set in Brussels,’ says O’Donoghue. ‘There are aspects of the plot that I think apply to most countries; high-level corruption, the symbiotic relationship between the entertainment and the news industries. But it’s also about the basic human instincts; love, loyalty, ambition, perversion…’ And the characters? ‘No one in the novel is based on one person,’ says O’Donoghue, ‘but some locals might recognise aspects of themselves.’ Like many writers, O’Donoghue is a magpie, collecting the more striking aspects of the people she observes. ‘Some of the bar staff at the Belga have fantastic tattoos,’ she says, ‘and I was inspired by them when writing one of my characters.’

As to her protagonist, Juliet MacGillivray starts with doubt and disbelief and ends with certainty and knowledge, leaving the reader to wonder which was the better. If you haven’t yet packed your suitcase for the beach or the pool, be sure to pop this novel in. And if, when you get back, you happen to see a striking, dark-haired lady at the Belga tapping into her computer, that will be Deborah O’Donoghue, hard at work on her second novel.

Paperback published by Legend Press, 1 July 2019

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We invite you to come to the opening this Friday and see how Jörg Baier is looking into the sun, Corinne Chotycki warns of slippage with eggs, Céline Cuvelier paints over the tourists in a Unesco World Heritage destination, Marianne Csaky pastes people into other places, Alexandra Huddleston portrays the infinite in the right now and right here, Elizabeth Hudson plays with sticks, words and banana skins as political actions, Sonia Hufton dresses a space and transforms it into a painting, Mimi Kunz makes ink move paper.

Christine Langinauer (ad)dresses the structural organization of living things, Rebekka Löffler lets shapes move in painting, Simon Medard hangs fresh paintings on a washing line, PAROLE paints writing, Alix Rothnie forms momentary sculptures to join the mountains, Erika Roux brings us so close to people we witness what happens between the action, Bobby Sayers lets us see and imagine a place all at once, Corrie Thomson lets sculptures pose in new settings, Stéfan Tulépo breaks the crusts of objects, and Esther Venrooy lets cargo ships drift on sound waves.

Through the enthusiasm of many beautiful people the exhibition grew into a festival, including a performance evening, food design, concerts, DJs, and a poetry reading.

What is poetry to us?

Elizabeth Hudson, Adalbert Jahnz, Sarah Reader Harris, George Kosmopoulos, Mimi Kunz, Marcello Shea (Wrek), Volkmar Mühleis, Antoinette Naomi Reddick, Bobby Sayers, Hannah Van Hove, Christine Langinauer and Patrick Ten Brick read contemporary texts and others that speak to them today: poems from friends and strangers, from local writers and authors who live or have lived far away.

For more information and the full program please visit

The post Something Beautiful: A visual art and poetry festival in Brussels appeared first on Brussels Express.

All entrepreneurs make mistakes. Quite often mistakes lead to wasted opportunities, time and even money. But in fact, mistakes are part of the excitement of doing it. Otherwise it would just be a dull and easy exercise. Anybody would be able to do it. Knowing that you are outsmarting the challenges is a huge thrill and motivation for entrepreneurs.

There is no recipe for success. No checklist you can blindly follow to be a successful entrepreneur. This does not mean that being an entrepreneur is about taking a leap of faith and hoping for the best. It is not guesswork. It is a mindset. A skillset. Previous experience and knowledge can help.

Besides personal experience and learning, huge value can be created from the failures and learning of others. Books are an amazing resource for this. The best thing about it is that, compared to other learning alternatives (i.e. formal education), it is extremely cheap.

I would like to share with you a list of books that helped me being better at my job as innovation consultant. The learnings in these books are useful for entrepreneurs but also, and based on my personal experience, for big and multinational organisations wanting to be more innovative.

1. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

This book guides you through the different stages a startup goes through. It details a go-getter approach which differs from traditional approaches. From identifying which opportunities are worth pursuing to finding the right people for your team, this book helps you learn how to avoid getting stuck in typical traps.

2. The Non-Technical Founder by Josh MacDonald

What if you have an amazing tech idea that you want to explore, but have no idea how to code? Nowadays, there is no need to know software to start a business. This book condenses advices from over twenty founders of multimillion software companies for non-technical people.

3. The Founder’s Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman

This book is based on research done at Princeton. It focuses on helping entrepreneurs avoiding common mistakes that can have huge negative effects on a business. The book is particularly interesting for unexperienced entrepreneurs as it familiarizes the reader with business structures. It uses easily recognizable examples, which makes it entertaining as well.

4. Surge by Matt Kane, Steve Garguilo and Sergiy Skoryk

Many of us are extremely passionate about specific ideas but we do not act on them. We tend to wait for the perfect timing or opportunity. This book delves into strategies helping people bring ideas to life instead of waiting for an idyllic moment that will never happen. It covers issues such as dealing with anxiety, fears and the feeling of being overwhelmed.

5. The Peter Principle by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull

Things go wrong sooner or later. But why? This book addresses the issue of incompetence and how staffing can make or break a business. This topic is relevant for all business owners across industries, levels of experience and maturity.

6. Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz

The author’s remarkable career as a hostage negotiator and later as an award-winning teacher in the world’s most prestigious business schools is, most definitely a huge sell for this book. It approaches the negotiation process as a set of irrational and emotional responses. This book takes emotional intelligence and intuition to the next level.

7. Zero to One by Peter Thiel

This book is for people that are starting a business and want to create something truly innovative and disruptive, rather than an incremental innovation or improved version of something already out there. It helps in learning the right questions to ask in order to create new offerings.

8. Grit by Angela Duckworth

This book explores the qualities leading to success and point out that genius plays a very small role in outstanding achievements. It is an extremely personal and insightful read on what people think during the process of failure. Grit, a combination of passion and perseverance, not talent or luck, fuels success.

9. Start with Why by Simon Sinek

This book is based on the famous TED Talk by Simon Sinek. It shows that the most influential leaders of the world think, communicate and act in the same way. Interestingly enough, it is the exact opposite way in which most people do. The Golden Circle is the framework provided upon which leaders can inspire, lead and build organization.

10. Side Hustle by Chris Guillebeau

What if you could easily create new income without giving up the security of a full-time job? This book shows you how to launch a side business in less than a month. The so-called side hustle. I particularly like this book because it is exactly how I ended up following a career in innovation. It all started as a side hustle (I actually called my first company Hack & Hustle).

The post 10 lesser-known (or not) books you must read before starting a business appeared first on Brussels Express.

After a 9-hour long fight, the inferno was finally suffocated by a team of 400 firefighters. In the street, Parisians sang hymns as they watched their beloved church smolder. On the internet, videos of the tragedy went viral. Not only France, but the entire world felt wounded. The loss was immense.

In the hours that followed, hundreds of millions of Euros were pledged to repair the damages. Governments extended a hand of solidarity to the people of France, because for everyone one thing was clear: the 850-year old building must continue to stand, resurrected, as an emblem of the beautiful city of Paris for future generations.

Notre Dame’s Cathedral was built over the span of not one or two, but several generations — it took 182 years to finish medieval church. The people who first embarked on its construction in the year 1160 knew that they wouldn’t live long enough to see the completion of the work, yet they gave their soul to the task while they could. Why?

To dive into this and other questions related to hope, the future of human kind, trees, literature and our connection to nature, I am in Oslo to meet Anne Beate Hovind, Project Director for Art at Bjørvika Development and Chairwoman of the Future Library Trust.

åpent bakeri is a coffee shop in the Bjørvika neighborhood in downtown Oslo. Several new and highly stylized buildings have been erected in this part of the city, one next to the other — people call it the Barcode district. On the floors above the cafe, offices from different companies overlook the Oslo fjord, its calm waters mirroring an expansive canvas of Nordic sky.

It’s half past noon and warm beams of April sunlight enter the room at an angle streaking the wooden floors with golden lines around me. I’ve been longing to speak with Anne Beate for a few days, ever since I found out about The Future Library, a project designed and executed by Anne Beate, along with Katie Paterson, a Scottish artist behind the art work. For the project, a thousand trees have been planted in Nordmarka, the forest on the northern outskirts of Oslo. In a 100 years’ time, the very same trees will become the paper for a collection of books, none of which can be read before 2114.

“Katie had spent a few days in my cabin, in Elverun, trying to think of ideas for a new project and one day she called and said, ‘I know what I am going to propose. It’s something that’s going to last for a hundred years.’ The first thing I thought was, How am I going to convince the board about this? How are we going to convince the municipality of Oslo?”

Among many other activities, Anne Beate works as an adviser and project director for art at Bjørvika Development, the company that has been in charge of construction, creating open public spaces and bringing life to the area.

“My first reaction was, It’s too risky. If the board asks me to run a risk assessment this is never going to fly. But a little later we realized that if you want to achieve something extraordinary, the kind of thinking that you need to have is the opposite. Instead of narrowing down, you have to open up and see what’s out there that hasn’t been tried yet.”

Anne Beate has green eyes and olive skin, delicate manners, the smile of someone whose passionate about life. “When Katie told me about the project, it confronted me with my own mortality,” she says. “When you think of the span of such a project, it’s too far into the future. But that’s where the ideas of hope and trust come into play. I have to trust that future generations will continue this project, and they also have to trust me, trust that I will take action now so that they can actually have a future.”

The idea of cathedral thinking comes from medieval times when architects and artisans embarked on building a cathedral knowing they would never see the end product. It is a shift of focus from the individual towards the collective good, as well as to the greater good of the future. “Not long ago Stephen Hawking referred to Cathedral Thinking when he said that the most meaningful thing life is not inheriting money, property, but rather inheriting a great challenge. A challenge that one generation starts and another continues and so on until the next one sees it fulfilled.”

From the time Anne Beate and Katie decided to set off on this adventure until it became a reality, they encountered many fortunate surprises. But also great challenges. “When Katie suggested that we have a chat with the Oslo Municipality and the Deichmanske Library to see if The Future Library could have a room of its own I thought, How are we going to convince them about something that needs 100 years to be completed?”

The new building for the Deichmanske Library, also in Bjorvika, is scheduled to open in 2020, as well as the new Edvard Munch Museum just a few meters into the Fjord, in what is a fantastic display of modern architecture and Nordic design.

One of the rooms in the new library was originally conceived to become a Silent Room, and that’s where The Future Library has found a home. “When Katie explained the idea to Liv Sæteren, Deichmaske Library’s director at the time, Liv started to cry. It was clear that she and Katie shared views on the idea of delayed publication, keeping the manuscripts, and so The Future Library will have a home right here in Bjørvika, in that building over there.”

The authors that have so far contributed manuscripts to The Future Library include: Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell, Sjón, Elif Shafak, and Han Kang.

“I still remember the day when Katie called to say Margaret Atwood had accepted to participate in the project. We realized that was of course huge and we were both in awe. And even to this day, we are astonished by how much The Future Library is touching so many people across the world. People are moved by it. Nobody could imagine how much it would resonate.”

When asked about whether this project could have happened anywhere else in the world, the forests of Canada or Finland, Anne Beate tilts her head and gazes at me. For a moment she seems to be considering the question, then says, “People say it couldn’t happen anywhere else, that it had to be in Norway.”

The idea of breaking up the soil and planting a thousand trees, tending to them and pruning the branches over time, all of it implies a desire to stay closer to nature, a trait that lies at the heart of Norwegian culture. “Yes, there is that, but there is something larger, the idea of hope. By doing this we believe that there will be people in the future, that there will be a forest. We need strong narratives that, in an ever-changing world, show us how to reconnect with nature.”

The smell of smoked ham, melted cheese and brewed coffee wafts in the air. People around us chatter in low voices; they are at the end of their lunch breaks. Anne Beate opens her computer and shows me pictures of the ceremonies that have taken place every year when an author hands over his/her manuscript to the city of Oslo. A walk starts in the middle of the city and ends up in the forest, where the young trees have been planted. This year, on May 25th, South Korean writer Han Kang will be in Oslo to deliver her work to the city, her gift to The Future Library.

I thank Anne Beate for her time and for her insights; so many thoughts to take in. As I leave the cafe and walk into the cool sunny afternoon, I cannot but think back to the idea that letting go of an outcome can mean both, living fully in the present and caring about the future. In the middle of a bridge I stop and bring a hand to my brow to shield my eyes from the glare. I watch a train ride by, a slow procession of wagons one after the other, until the clattering dissolves into distance. I continue walking, somewhat dazed, not knowing which path I will follow. And the words of Han Kang still linger in my head:

“If it is possible to call prayer the moment when, in spite of all the uncertainty, we have to take just one step towards the light, in this moment I feel that perhaps this project is something close to a century-long prayer.”

***

My encounter with Anne Beate Hovind wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Mathilde Rübberdt, Communications Advisor for VisitOSLO.

The post The Future Library: Why Norway is planting trees of hope for the world’s future generations appeared first on Brussels Express.

Book launches are very special nights for any writer lucky enough to be in one of them. All BWC writers involved had dreamed of being published or having their own launch for a long time – years in some cases.  And here it was, suddenly happening, now.

At 7h pm sharp, the first innings began with the guests being welcomed by Patrick ten Brink, the Anthology Editor, followed by a series of readings from the accomplished works of some of the Brussels Writers Circle authors:

Some of the phrases that still echo in my mind include:

‘I shovelled the popcorn, poured the popcorn, served the popcorn’   Colin Walsh

‘What the hell is this?It’s some sort of ritual. It’s a bloody New Age circus!’  Jeanie Keogh

‘If you can’t do it, he’ll cut the line.’   Cynthia Huijgens

‘I’m as white as they are, just a little shorter.’    Klavs Skovsholm

‘She wore her creases and weathered skin as a badge of honour.’    T.D. Arkenberg

‘The scent of watermint, the taste of blue.’     Sarah Harrris

‘Buster barks, he’s upset but she’s not going far.’    Jay Harold

‘Strange punctuation, or symbol, like a repeated beeping, of a slow morse code.’  Patrick ten Brink

Intrigued? Visit Waterstones to get a copy of The Circle, or join the Brussels Writers’ Circle. The Circle, A Brussels Anthology is available at Waterstones as well as online from all the usual outlets. The collection, a unique collection of thirty-four emerging and prize-winning authors from nineteen countries, sharpens its largely expat outpourings of human love and beastly bombings.

It portrays our troubled yet exciting times through short story, poem, script and novel excerpts of both seasoned pros and promising newcomers.  Following the launch, The Circle was chosen for reading by the Waterstones Book Club, with a successful follow-up meet with five of the authors on the 5th of December at the Muntpunt Library.

The post Thirty four authors from nineteen countries launch new anthology in Brussels appeared first on Brussels Express.

In New York City’s Central Park there is a statue of a dog. Balto, a Siberian Husky, became famous for leading a rescue mission through blizzards, bringing medicine from Alaska to Nome.

In Tokyo’s Shibuya station there is the statue of Hachikō, an Akita Uni dog who went to meet his owner at the station every evening, and continued to wait for him every day for nine years after the man had died.

In Brussels’ Park Cinquantenaire, or Jubelpark, there is a dog sculpture, too. It is called “The dog », and often referred to as “the green dog“. It was made by Jean-Baptiste Van Heffen and originally exhibited at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, then placed in the park. While temporarily moved to the entrance of park Woluwe for an exhibition, it gave it’s name to a café there: Café-Laiterie du Chien vert. Some say the green has been added to the name because people rub the sculpture for good luck.

To me, Brussels is like this sculpture. It doesn’t incarnate one story, it inspires many. When walking up Montmartre in Paris, seeing Manhattan from a ferry or watching waves of people cross the street in Tokyo there is a moment of recognition ̶ it’s like I thought it would be from what I saw in the cinema. Where is this movie-moment in Brussels? The TV usually shows the European Parliament and the Commission. I can see the later from my window, behind a hilly roofscape of Art Nouveau houses.

At night not only are the commissions’ windows are lit, but there are lights on the lake. Someone is canoeing around swimming candles. On New Year’s Eve, someone shoots rockets over the lake, delighting all the neighboring parties. In January, birds walk their shadows across the ice.

Let me add a quick note on the weather here. I don’t think it’s grey unless you think of grey as all the colors mixed together. Sunny in the morning, rain at lunchtime, thunder in the afternoon, clouds at dinnertime and clear sky at night. It’s April, always. And windy.

The park around the lake, populated by ducks, doves and parrots, kissing couples, caring grandparents, people practicing Tai Chi or peeing against a tree, is at its most beautiful in tulip season when the round flower beds bloom in red, yellow, pink, black, purple, and white. A series of ink drawings inspired by them was shown in my first exhibition here, held in one of the many artist-run spaces. The day after the opening I walked into a gallery in the center, inviting them to see it. On the last day of the show the gallery manager came in with his kid. He just happened to live next door.

Proximity plays a leading role here, people are approachable and distances walkable, places are near. When arriving in 2015 I got a job in an Irish pub I used to go to to write, swapping stories with the bartender. Michael Collins, in rue Bailli, is owned by the same people as De Valera at Place Flagey (now closed), the pubs named after two Irish men who hated each other are but a street away.

When Collins closes in the late night or early in the morning the staff sends people to Supra, one of the four restaurant/bars marking the crossroad in rue Bailli. It’s a place like a time machine, the twin towers on a poster behind the bar, old curtains and all kinds of characters.

At 9 or 10 a.m., there are people like me, writing, drawing, toying with ideas. There are tourists having croissants, regulars drinking a little glass of red, or beer, having coffee and cigarettes, talking. Coffee to go hasn’t really caught on here. Asking how someone came to live in Brussels often triggers answers like, « I came for this person/internship/event… twelve years ago. »

In the bus the next stop is announced as « Froissart – Froissart« . It’s written the same, and it sounds like the same and it is Flemish and French. As an artist this daily diversity freed something in me. I used to believe that I ought to choose a medium, maybe a language. Here the disparate inspires new forms. In a frameshop/gallery in rue Bailli I look at Christian Dotrement’s Logogrammes, which merged poetry with painting, making us see poetry. In a collaboration of Belgian-Maroccan choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and artist Anthony Gormley shown at the Théâtre National clay forms a floor for dancers who then turn it into masks, into a camera, a cocktail, a penis.

Maybe there isn’t the movie moment in this city because it never settles into one coherent form, it’s image is never dominated by a single feature. Bureaucratic and disorganized, beautiful and dirty, grand and familiar, green and dense. If the soul of Brussels were a thing it’d be a kaleidoscope, or a moving stage.

My favorite Vietnamese restaurant is furnished by the upholstery of a German train. My yoga classes takes place in an old garage that has been turned into a dance Academy, and the writing desk I share with a clown is in a laundromat that became a creative co-working space.

The map of Brussels looks like paper under a microscope. The roads aren’t straight, it seems to have grown organically and it takes time to figure out which ways run kind of parallel. There are gardens between clusters of tall town houses. Looking out of back windows reveals not only green spots but all kinds of rooftops and balconies, hidden views. Windows aren’t on one level here and buildings are so diverse they seem natural in their assemblage of different styles.

Next to a big mosque in Park Cinquantenaire is the Pavilion of the Human Passions, designed by Victor Horta. It houses a monumental fresco by Jef Lambeaux showing, yeeees, the Human Passions. Downtown, a few streets from Grand Place, after a rainbow colored zebra crossing there is Mademoiselle, a cabaret presenting local and international artists. Although the decor is simple walking in after work feels like entering a theatre  ̶  the atmosphere is extravagant and casual, exotic and familiar. Burlesque, boylesque, draglesque  ̶  anything goes here, and that feels like Brussels to me. A stage is a stage is a stage and a city is a city is a city, until we attach a story to it. Brussels has many. It’s as we like it.

Good to know

An anthology by Brussels Writers – The Circle – will be launched on November 22nd at Waterstones in Brussels, and is also available online here.

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