Tomas Lieske

Tomas Lieske (b. 1943) debuted at the age of 38 with poetry published in the literary journals Tirade and De Revisor. In 1992 his first prose work, Oorlogstuinen (War Gardens), gained him the Geert-Jan Lubberhuizen Prize. In 1996 his novel Nachtkwartier (Night Quarters) was nominated for the Libris Literature Prize, an award he finally received for his novel Franklin (2001), about an outcast who manages to survive on optimism and imagination. Magic, myth, and chance play a central role in Lieske’s universe. With the successful novel Gran Café Boulevard (2003) he was able to find a prosaic, tempting, and accessible form for expressing the ineffable. In the historical novella Mijn soevereine liefde (My Sovereign Love, 2005), Lieske hones his baroque narrative style sharper than ever. For his fifth poetry collection *How to Recognize your Lover *(2006), he was awarded the prestigious VSB Poetry Prize 2007.

The poetry of Tomas Lieske

(Querido, )

Tomas Lieske made his debut at the age of forty-four with the poetry collection The Ice Generals (1987), but quickly expanded his sphere of activity to cover a broad literary front. Having maintained a poetry chronicle for Tirade magazine, he began to publish successful novels and short story collections. But poetry remained his core business. In his poems, imagination and the unutterable play a significant role but, all the same, Lieske is also a matter-of-fact poet who regards metaphysics and mysteries as human projections. His remarks on dreams are typical of his attitude: ‘They gnaw at your fingernails, speak a language, bring good luck/ although they don’t even exist.’…

Franklin

(Querido, 2001, 336 pages)

After being nominated for the Libris Prize for his first novel, Nachtkwartier (Night Quarter, 1995), Lieske carried off the prize in 2001 with Franklin. The jury commended, amongst other things, his enormously vivid style. And not without cause; Franklin is a sparkling, modern picaresque novel, full of pace and surprising twists.

Gran Café Boulevard

(Querido, 2003, 357 pages)

Gran Café Boulevard has much in common with an old-fashioned adventure novel, with its sprawling narrative and the role played by chance. However, Lieske’s baroque style, and his near-sensual delight in exploring unexpected side-paths make this book an exercise in madness and a literary feast. A melancholy tone is set straightaway, in the prologue. ‘No summer spread such a strong, almost resilient happiness over the grassland between the Wide Aa and the three pools as that summer of 1924.’

My Sovereign Love

(Querido, 2005, 108 pages)

In the historical novella My Sovereign Love, Thomas Lieske takes the reader back to the court of Philip II of Spain, halfway through the sixteenth century. Turbulent times, in which wars between Spain, France, and England are settled by strategic marriages. But Lieske’s narrator, Marnix de Veer, a native of The Hague, is not much interested in politics, as he clearly tells us more than once. He is interested in mathematics and instruments of measurement, in mechanics and in buildings. It is because of his expertise in these areas that Philip – here consistently referred to by his Spanish name, Felipe – takes him into his service.

Dünya

(Querido, 2007, 341 pages)

‘My novels always evolve in the same way: I wait until I have a subject, a theme that I’m passionate about, and then I find a suitable time and place for it,’ Tomas Lieske said in a recent interview. He is not a writer who likes to stay close to home. Dünya, his latest novel, is set in Turkey shortly after the First World War. He has written about Turkey before, in his novel Nachtkwartier (Night Quarters), but not when it was poor and ruined, not at the time of the Armenian genocide - still a burning issue ninety years later.

Everything Shifts

(Querido, 2010, 245 pages)

In 1972 Anton Milot, a man of thirty-four, meets his younger self on the street. He travels to Berlin with the boy he once was, who tells him about his youth. ‘I know that deep in his heart he doesn’t believe one iota of my explanation that we’re the same person. I have proof; he has yet to experience it all. His stories are coloured by his enthusiasm and from his disbelief flows a profusion of detail.’

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