Search results for ""Author Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer""

"If Italo Calvino decided to make one of his invisible cities visible, the result might look something like Pfeijffer's Genoa." -- Benjamin Moser An absolute joy to read, La Superba, winner of the most prestigious Dutch literary prize, is a Rabelaisian, stylistic tour-de-force about a writer who becomes trapped in his walk on the wild side in mysterious and exotic Genoa, centering on the stories of migration and immigration, legal and illegal, telling the story of modern Europe. Part migrant story, part perverse travel guide, La Superba is a wholly postmodern ode to the imagination that lovingly describes the labyrinthine and magical city that Pfeijffer calls home: Genoa, Italy, the city known as La Superba for its beauty and rich history. Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer (b. 1968), poet, dramatist, novelist, renowned in the Netherlands as a master of language, is the only two-time winner of the Tzum Prize for "the most beautiful sentence written in Dutch" (including one in La Superba!).

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THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer’s moving and addictive masterpiece of European identity, nostalgia and the end of an era. ‘A masterpiece: grandiose style, brilliant and rich. It will defy the ages’ Trouw (The Netherlands) ‘The love of my life lives in my past. That is, despite the alliteration, a terrible sentence to write. I do not want to come to the conclusion that, as it is the case for the hotel where I am staying and the continent after which it is named, the best time is behind me and that I have little more to expect from the future than to live on my past.’ A writer takes residence in the illustrious but decaying Grand Hotel Europa, to think about where things went wrong with Clio, with whom he fell in love in Genoa and moved to Venice. He reconstructs a compelling story of love in times of mass tourism, about their trips to Malta, Palmaria, Portovenere and the Cinque Terre and their thrilling search for the last painting of Caravaggio. Meanwhile, he becomes fascinated by the mysteries of Grand Hotel Europe and gets more and more involved with the memorable characters who inhabit it, and who seem to come from a more elegant time. All the while, globalisation seems to be grabbing hold even on this place frozen in time. Grand Hotel Europa is Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer’s masterly novel on the old continent, where so much history resides that there is no place left for a future and where the most realistic future perspectives are offered in the form of exploiting the past in the shape of tourism.

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For the past twelve years, Stephan Vanfleteren (b. 1969) has been working intense hours in his daylight studio at home. Atelier is a collection of that work. Vanfleteren is searching for beauty and meaning, both in daylight and under artificial light. Grey stage curtains are everywhere as a constantly repeating background. The photographer embraces well-known personalities and anonymous people. He inspects and captures the grooves in the face of an old fisherman and the hand of Nick Cave on the same terms as he does a beachcombed bottle. He focuses an adoring gaze on his own children coming of age as well as on impassioned artists in their old age. He sees the frozen corpse of a kingfisher and the body of a twisting dancer, and watches as the sunlight slowly shifts across his stage curtain. Vanfleteren connects to the traditions of old and contemporary masters but remains faithful to his characteristic style. His craftsmanship and artistic nature make us both witness and party to the splash of incoming light. With a text contribution by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer.

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