The first Boekenbon Literature Prize does not go to Charlotte Van den Broeck or Koen Sels, the outsiders on the list, but to established value Oek de Jong.
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The Boekenbon Literature Prize may not immediately mean something to you, but that is the prize that in the distant past was known as the Ako Literature Prize. The first edition under that name goes to Oek de Jong (68) for his novel Black barn. De Jong beats four other nominees: Stephan Enter met Pastoral, Marcel Möring with Amen, Charlotte Van den Broeck with Ventures and Koen Even with Gloria – three established Dutch names and two exciting young Flemish voices. The jury thus showed some sense of adventure, although there was also criticism of the male-dominated shortlist, and of the predominantly male and homogeneous white composition of the jury. ‘Now that the literary field has changed so much that half of the strong novels are actually written by women, the prizes may finally go to women,’ Leiden professor Yra van Dijk wrote on Facebook.
The big three
In Black barn Oek de Jong presents Maris Coppoolse, an artist at the pinnacle of his skills: he is given a retrospective exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the international press is praising his work. Just when he seems to be completely successful, he is overtaken by his past. Under the title ‘Lifelong’, a magazine reveals the deepest origins of his artistry: the story of how, as a 14-year-old, he was involved in the death of a girl in a black-tarred shed in South Beveland. That defining moment left him with a debt that will burden him for the rest of his life. What does it do to you when you are forever on the run from a sense of guilt that you cannot escape? Maris’ existence is shaking to its foundations, also because his marriage is on the verge of breaking after twenty years.
‘A novel about the long tentacles of guilt and the sizzling power of a great love’, said journalist Jelle Van Riet Black barn in a interview with Oek de Jong The Standard of Letters. ‘A book in which he covers his favorite themes: violence resulting from hurt and anger, the dark side of eroticism, and intimacy’. De Jong himself says about this in the same interview: ‘Ultimately, as a Greek tragedy writer, I am looking for something that creates drama and then you soon arrive at the big three: sex, violence and death. Drama makes descent possible and that is what I obsessively aim for: I want to descend as far as possible into the depths of the human mind to uncover something that people usually run away from. I want to go beyond the usual in which people are trapped. ‘
With that he has clearly made a deep impression on the jury. ‘With his concentrated, highly psychological approach, Oek de Jong has created a person and a decor that the reader effortlessly demands, forcing him to think about the fine line between sexuality and aggression, male identity and the healing or non-healing power of art ‘, she states in her jury report.
New breath
De Jong is by no means a fast writer. Although he has been in the literary world for decades – he made his debut in 1979 with Summer dresses that blow – he is with Black barn only ready for his fifth novel. He also wrote stories and essays. After a long silent period between 1985 and 1995 he found a new breath. He worked for eight years on his previous novel, the thick magnum opus Pier and ocean (2012), for which he was awarded the Gouden Uil Literature Prize. The award with the Boekenbon Literature Prize for Black barn gives him a prize money of 50,000 euros.
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