Dutch writer and critic Kees ‘t Hart is interested in the blurred boundaries between fact and fiction, reality and memory. Autobiographical elements figure strongly in his work – from his earliest stories to his latest novel.

Kees 't Hart - 'The Pigeon'

Born in Den Haag in 1944, Kees ‘t Hart grew up in Nijmegen and studied Dutch at the University of Amsterdam. After many years of teaching, he made his literary debut in 1988 with a collection of short stories called ‘Vitrines’ (Showcases).

Marathon writing  

Several novels followed in quick succession including ‘Blauw Curacao’ (Blue Curacao) which won the Piter Jelles Prize and ‘De revue’ (The Revue) which was awarded the Multatuliprijs in 2000. The same year he won the Ida Gerhardt Poetry Prize for his collection ‘Kinderen die leren lezen’ (Children who learn to read).

He compares his writing process to running a marathon. He spends about a year thinking about an idea and then writes a first draft in just one or two months. “The one year is the training,” he says. “The writing months are the marathon: five pages a day and no bullshit.”

Fiction versus reality

His latest novel is ‘De Krokodil van Manhattan’ (The Crocodile of Manhatten). It’s about a Dutch teacher who travels to New York City for a theatre course at the acclaimed arts academy Julliard, just as the author once did. In fact, the name of the teacher in the novel is Kees ‘t Hart. The book mixes fictional characters with real-life figures like Nobel Prize winning author Derek Walcott and Germaine Greer.

He’s also written a book about the passion for football, published essays about the joys of reading and edited the Dutch translation of poetry by Walt Whitman. “Everyone can learn to write,” adds ‘t Hart. He most recently wrote a book on that subject, as well.

Kees ‘t Hart’s contribution to Radio Books is ‘The Pigeon.’ During the interval of a romantic French film, a chance encounter brings about the remembrance of things past: a wounded pigeon, young lovers kissing in the rain, and an affair that might have been. This gentle story explores the delicate balance between truth and memory.

“Perhaps Jeune looks a bit like Catherine Deneuve in ‘Le Dernier Métro’, I think, as we stand there together. Shall I say so? Better not, there’s something severe and lonely about Deneuve in the film, which Jeune sometimes had too, but she kept exchanging it for different faces. She’s the woman with the most changeable face I know.”

‘The Pigeon’ by Kees ‘t Hart was translated by Michael Blass. The story is read by David Swatling.

The series Radio Books is an initiative of Flemish-Dutch Huis de Buren in Brussels, in association with the Flemish radio broadcaster Klara and Radio Netherlands Worldwide.