Bernard Dewulf
Small Days (Kleine dagen)
Poetic diary of everyday life
Bernard Dewulf’s Kleine dagen (Small Days) features a selection of columns published on alternate days on the front page of the Flemish paper De Morgen, often the first article the reader would read. The column was popular for its familiar intimacy when contrasted with serious news.
In Kleine dagen we read about Dewulf’s wife and two children, their family life and details of everyday life. He follows his children’s development from birth to puberty, from security to detachment. Their silent presence at home, their experiences at school, their dealings with the world outside, their prospects in life, their first questions about sex. The strength of the family bond is clear from how much they miss each other when either the author or his wife is away from home. Often these occasions summon up memories of his own childhood and his own relationship with his parents. In so doing, the writing is suffused with the notion of time passing. Dewulf says that he ‘studied to be a sceptic,’ which led him to realise that happiness (not in fact the word he uses) is conditional and temporary, and that in the end, our entire existence is futile. This shows in the melancholy of his intimate writings, without in the slightest detracting from their charm.
Bernard Dewulf’s prose is striking for its subdued tone, its beautiful metaphors and its natural lyricism. He pins down fleeting, ordinary moments into valuable, intimate tableaux and in his own idiosyncratic way, makes personal experience universally recognisable. How wonderful it must be for his children to see their childhood recorded so well by a loving author father! Kleine dagen is a unique poetic diary of daily life, evoking affection and admiration in equal measure.
Publisher
Atlas
Herengracht 481
NL - 1017 BT Amsterdam
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E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.uitgeverijatlas.nl
Publishing details
Kleine dagen (2009, 187 pp)
Biography
For many years, poet and writer Bernard Dewulf (b. 1960) was the cultural and literary editor of Flemish newspaper De Morgen, and from 1998 till 2000 he was the editor-in-chief of the renowned literary magazine Nieuw Wereldtijdschrift. He published his debut, a collection of poetry titled Waar de egel gaat (Where the Hedgehog Goes) in 1995 which was awarded the Flemish Debut Prize. He followed it up with Blauwziek (Blue-sick) in 2006. Dewulf is, also known for his probing essays on painters and painting, collected in Bijlichtingen: kijken naar schilders (Lighting the Way: Looking at Painters, 2001) and Naderingen: kijken & zoeken naar schilders (Approaches: Looking At And Looking For Painters, 2006). The first selection of his short, personal columns for De Morgen, entitled Loerhoek (Lurking Corner), was published in 2006. The second collection, Kleine dagen (Small Days, 2009), won him the 2010 Libris Literature Prize.
Quotes
An extremely personal and extraordinarily formulated ode.
NRC Handelsblad
Fascinating depiction of the evolution of society through one family […] a stylistic crown jewel.
Jury Report, Libris Literature Prize
In his search for lost time, the author dissects the small and at the same time the great things in life and holds on to that as he writes.
De Telegraaf