533

Zusatztext It's testimony to the power of this humane, insightful and deeply cultured book that it should resolve the dissonance so gracefully, between the monastic urge to contemplation and the world it would repudiate. Informationen zum Autor Cees Nooteboom was born in The Hague in 1933, and now lives in Amsterdam and on the island of Minorca. He is a poet and novelist who has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards such as the Pegasus Prize and the Aristeion Prize for his novels, which include Rituals (1983), The Following Story (1994), and All Souls' Day (2001). His books of travel writing, Roads to Santiago (1997) and Roads to Berlin (2012) have become backlist classics. Klappentext 533 days in the life of a great European writer. Though a tireless explorer of distant cultures, for more than forty years Cees Nooteboom has also been returning to the island of Menorca, "the island of the wind", and it is in his house there, with a study full of books and a garden taken over with native plants and fauna, that the 533 days of writing take place. The product is not a diary, nor a set of movements of the soul organised by dates, but "a book of days" to retain "something of the flow of thoughts, and of what one reads and sees" with concerns about his cactus garden and suffering hibiscus, his love for Menorca, his thoughts on the world and on the place we humans have in the universe.Every impression opens windows on vast horizons: the Divine Comedy and the books it generated, the impossible encounter between Montaigne and Feldman's music, the contempt of beloved Borges for his beloved Gombrowicz, the death of David Bowie, the endless flight of the Voyagers, the repetition of history as a tragedy, but never as a farce. 533 is a meditative rhapsody that would like to exclude the noise of current events, yet which sceptically contemplates the threat of a disintegrating Europe and must return to them several times, because if, as Candide says, "one must cultivate one's own garden", one's own garden is in the world, whether you like it or not.Translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson Vorwort 533 days in the life of a great writer, reflecting on his immediate surroundings on the island of Menorca, on literature, global affairs and his place in the universe. Zusammenfassung "A lyrical 'book of days' . . . A bejewelled mosaic" Financial Times "Humane, insightful and deeply cultured" Times Literary Supplement Though a tireless explorer of distant cultures, for more than forty years Cees Nooteboom has also been returning to Menorca, "the island of the wind", and it is in his house there, with a study full of books and a garden taken over by cacti and many insects, that the 533 days of writing take place. The result is not a diary, nor a set of movements of the soul organised by dates, but "a book of days", with observations about what is immediately around him, his love for Menorca, his thoughts on the world, on life and death, on literature and oblivion. Every impression opens windows onto vast horizons: the Divine Comedy and the books it generated, the contempt of Borges for Gombrowicz, the death of David Bowie, the endless flight of the Voyagers, the repetition of history as a tragedy, but never as farce. 533 is a meditative rhapsody that would like to exclude the noise of current events, yet must return to them several times, and sceptically contemplates the threat of a disintegrating Europe. Reading this book is like having an extraordinary conversation with an extraordinary mind. "The very first pages are so powerful that you suspect the author must have binned the preceding pages that were needed to climb to such heights" De Volkskrant "The 533 days captivate in their undisguised openness to the world" Süddeutsche Zeitung </b...

Préface
533 days in the life of a great writer, reflecting on his immediate surroundings on the island of Menorca, on literature, global affairs and his place in the universe.

Auteur
Cees Nooteboom was born in The Hague in 1933, and now lives in Amsterdam and on the island of Minorca. He is a poet and novelist who has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards such as the Pegasus Prize and the Aristeion Prize for his novels, which include Rituals (1983), The Following Story (1994), and All Souls' Day (2001). His books of travel writing, Roads to Santiago (1997) and Roads to Berlin (2012) have become backlist classics.

Texte du rabat

533 days in the life of a great European writer.

Though a tireless explorer of distant cultures, for more than forty years Cees Nooteboom has also been returning to the island of Menorca, "the island of the wind", and it is in his house there, with a study full of books and a garden taken over with native plants and fauna, that the 533 days of writing take place.

The product is not a diary, nor a set of movements of the soul organised by dates, but "a book of days" to retain "something of the flow of thoughts, and of what one reads and sees" with concerns about his cactus garden and suffering hibiscus, his love for Menorca, his thoughts on the world and on the place we humans have in the universe.

Every impression opens windows on vast horizons: the Divine Comedy and the books it generated, the impossible encounter between Montaigne and Feldman's music, the contempt of beloved Borges for his beloved Gombrowicz, the death of David Bowie, the endless flight of the Voyagers, the repetition of history as a tragedy, but never as a farce.

533 is a meditative rhapsody that would like to exclude the noise of current events, yet which sceptically contemplates the threat of a disintegrating Europe and must return to them several times, because if, as Candide says, "one must cultivate one's own garden", one's own garden is in the world, whether you like it or not.

Translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson

Résumé

"A lyrical 'book of days' . . . A bejewelled mosaic" Financial Times

"Humane, insightful and deeply cultured" Times Literary Supplement

Though a tireless explorer of distant cultures, for more than forty years Cees Nooteboom has also been returning to Menorca, "the island of the wind", and it is in his house there, with a study full of books and a garden taken over by cacti and many insects, that the 533 days of writing take place.

The result is not a diary, nor a set of movements of the soul organised by dates, but "a book of days", with observations about what is immediately around him, his love for Menorca, his thoughts on the world, on life and death, on literature and oblivion. Every impression opens windows onto vast horizons: the Divine Comedy and the books it generated, the contempt of Borges for Gombrowicz, the death of David Bowie, the endless flight of the Voyagers, the repetition of history as a tragedy, but never as farce.

533 is a meditative rhapsody that would like to exclude the noise of current events, yet must return to them several times, and sceptically contemplates the threat of a disintegrating Europe. Reading this book is like having an extraordinary conversation with an extraordinary mind.

"The very first pages are so powerful that you suspect the author must have binned the preceding pages that were needed to climb to such heights" De Volkskrant

"The 533 days captivate in their undisguised openness to the world" Süddeutsche Zeitung

Photographs by Simone Sassen * Translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson