Starring in the ninth episode of Kopje Koffie, the German book podcast about Dutch literature: Dutch writer Jessica Durlacher talks in the Literary Society in Bielefeld with Katharina Borchardt about her book De stem (The Voice), published by De Arbeiderspers in 2021. In May of 2022, the book was published in German by Diogenes Verlag, under the title Die Stimme, translated by Annelie Bogener.
As with Durlacher’s previous novels, The Voice is about violence encroaching upon ordinary lives and the question of how to be a good and just person. Psychoanalyst Zelda looks back on her past, when she made a home with her husband Bor Wagschal and their patchwork family of three children. As second-generation Holocaust survivors, they are aware that the battle for freedom is never really over. Their friendship with a threatened anti-Islam activist begins to put this moral principle under strain and will ultimately destroy the family.
In Kopje Koffie Durlacher talks about her German roots and her Jewish father, the inspiration for her novel material and the working methods of a writer’s household.
Jessica Durlacher’s work has been translated into Bulgarian, Danish, German, Italian, Russian and Swedish. More information can be found in the Translation database.
Listen to this episode of Kopje Koffie via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music and Deezer, or via the website of the Dutch Foundation for Literature.
Kopje Koffie (Cup of Coffee) podcast
The Dutch Embassy in Berlin and the Dutch Foundation for Literature, in cooperation with Flanders Literature and the General Representation of the Government of Flanders, produce the Kopje Koffie (‘Cup of Coffee’) podcast, aimed at German readers and listeners. Dutch writers with a new translation in German are invited to talk about their work. The podcast is a journey through the current Dutch-language literary scene and is the ideal introduction to 2024, when the Leipzig Book Fair presents the Netherlands and Flanders as guest countries.