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Astrid Roemer

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Astrid Roemer
BornAstrid Heligonda Roemer
(1947-04-27) 27 April 1947 (age 77)[1]
Paramaribo, Suriname
OccupationWriter
LanguageDutch
NationalitySuriname
Netherlands
Notable worksOn a Woman's Madness (Over de gekte van een vrouw)
Notable awardsP. C. Hooft Award (2016)
Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren (2021)

Astrid Heligonda Roemer (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɑstrɪt ɦeːliˈɣɔndaː ˈrumər]; born 27 April 1947)[1] is a Surinamese-Dutch writer and teacher.[2] The Dutch-language author has published novels, drama and poetry, and in December 2015 was announced as the winner of the P. C. Hooft Award, considered the most important literary prize in the Netherlands and Belgium, which was presented in May 2016.[3][4][5]

Her work On a Woman's Madness, the English-language translation by Lucy Scott of Over de gekte van een vrouw (first published in Dutch in 1982), was longlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize.[6]

Biography

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Roemer was born on 27 April 1947 in Paramaribo, capital of Suriname, and attended the city's Kweekschool (Surinaams Pedagogisch Instituut; SPI), a teaching college, where in 1965, she was discovered as a poet.[7] She travelled to the Netherlands the following year, and went back and forth between Suriname and the Netherlands (she also lived in The Hague) until the 1970s.[8] In 1970, she published her first book of poetry, Sasa mijn actuele zijn. Her first novel, Neem mij terug Suriname (Take Me Back Suriname, 1974), was very successful in Suriname,[8] and was rewritten as Nergens ergens ("Nowhere somewhere", 1983).[9] She took up residence permanently in the Netherlands in 1975, after being fired from her teaching job for refusing to celebrate the Sinterklaas celebrations, which include a blackface character named Zwarte Piet.[7]

From the 1970s on, she was a prolific writer, publishing novels, drama, and poetry; her breakthrough in the Netherlands was the fragmentary novel Over de gekte van een vrouw ("On the madness of a woman"),[8] a work investigating identity and the oppression of women,[10] which established her as a feminist writer and made her a role model for lesbians.[8] She spent some time in the city council of The Hague for the GroenLinks party, in 1989, but left quickly after a dispute with the party. Between 1996 and 1998, she published a trilogy that is now among the best-known of her works,[7] though no longer in print: Gewaagd leven (1996), Lijken op liefde (1997) and Was getekend (1998).[8] The novels were published together as Roemers drieling ("Roemer's triplets", 2001).[10] The German translation of Lijken op liefde was awarded the LiBeratur Prize.[9]

From 2006 to 2009, Roemer lived in Suriname again. In her later years, she has published little. Her autobiography, Zolang ik leef ben ik niet dood ("As long as I'm living I'm not dead"), appeared in 2004, and a collection of love poems called Afnemend ("Diminishing") was published in 2012, in only 125 copies.[7] Roemer disappeared from the public eye, and travelled the world for 15 years, with "cat, laptop, and backpack". Her first public appearance in a long time was planned for the 2015 premiere of De wereld heeft gezicht verloren, a biographical documentary by Cindy Kerseborn.[11] Kerseborn had looked for Roemer on the Scottish island of Skye but finally found her in a Belgian monastery. Roemer did not show up for the premiere but sent a text message urging people to love one another.[8]

Roemer won the P. C. Hooft Award for 2016[12] over the favoured candidate, Arnon Grunberg,[7] becoming the first Caribbean author to win the award.[8] According to the jury, Roemer's novels are a literary imagining of the history of Suriname, a history that is not very well known in the Netherlands outside of the topics of slavery and the December murders but is "inextricably intertwined with the history of our country...and thus, by way of Roemer's unique oeuvre, with our literature". The jury added, "political engagement and literary experiment go hand in hand with Roemer".[10]

In 2021, Roemer received the Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren, becoming the first Surinamese winner.[13] The jury's nomination states: "With her novels, plays and poems Astrid H. Roemer occupies a unique position in the Dutch literary landscape. Her work is unconventional, poetic and lived through. Roemer succeeds in connecting themes from recent national history, such as corruption, tension, guilt, colonization and decolonization, with small history, the story on a human scale."[14]

In September 2023, the English translation of On a Woman’s Madness, by Lucy Scott (published by Two Lines Press), was longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature.[15][16] In 2025, it was longlisted for the International Booker Prize.[17] The gap between the original-language publication of this work in 1982 and its International Booker longlisting in 2025 is 43 years, the longest in the award's history.[18]

Roemer's 2024 novel Off-White, translated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott and David McKay, was described by Publishers Weekly as "a thought-provoking portrait of a fraught familial and colonial history".[19]

Publications

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English translations

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  • A Name for Love. Novel. Translated by Rita Gircour. Amsterdam: In de Knipscheer (courtesy ed.), 1994. ISBN 90-6773-018-1.[20]
  • The Order of the Day. A novella. Translated by Rita Gircour, with an introduction by Michiel van Kempen. Amsterdam: In de Knipscheer (courtesy ed.), 1994. ISBN 90-6773-017-3.
  • On a Woman's Madness. Translated by Lucy Scott. San Francisco, CA: Two Lines Press, 2023. ISBN 978-1-949641-43-1.
  • Off-White. Translated by Scott and David McKay. San Francisco, CA: Two Lines Press, 2024. ISBN 978-1949641257.

In Dutch

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The works of Roemer based on her Digital Library for Dutch Literature profile:[2]

  • 1970: Sasa mijn actuele zijn (Sasa my present being)
  • 1974: Neem mij terug, Suriname (Take me back, Suriname)
  • 1975: De wereld heeft gezicht verloren (The world has lost face)
  • 1982: Over de gekte van een vrouw (On the madness of a woman)
  • 1983: Nergens ergens (Nowhere somewhere)
  • 1985: En wat dan nog?! (And so what?!)
  • 1985: Noordzee Blues (North Sea Blues)
  • 1987: Levenslang gedicht (Lifelong poem)
  • 1987: Waarom zou je huilen mijn lieve, lieve... (Why would you cry my dear, dear...)
  • 1987: Wat heet anders (What is so different)
  • 1988: De achtentwintigste dag (The twenty-eighth day)
  • 1988: De orde van de dag (The order of the day)
  • 1988: Het spoor van de jakhals (The trace of the jackall)
  • 1989: Alles wat gelukkig maakt (All that makes happy)
  • 1989: Oost West Holland Best (East West Holland Best)
  • 1990: Een naam voor de liefde (A name for love)
  • 1991: Dichter bij mij schreeuw ik (Closer to me I'll scream)
  • 1993: Niets wat pijn doet (Nothing that hurts)
  • 1996: Gewaagd leven (Daring life)
  • 1997: Lijken op liefde (Looks like love)
  • 1997: Suriname (Suriname)
  • 1998: Was getekend (Signed)
  • 2001: 'Miauw' ('Meow')
  • 2004: Zolang ik leef ben ik niet dood (As long as I live I'm not dead)
  • 2019: Gebroken wit (Off-White)
  • 2023: DealersDochter

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Biografie Astrid H. Roemer – Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren". Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren. 12 October 2021. Retrieved 2 April 2025.
  2. ^ a b "Astrid Roemer". Digital Library for Dutch Literature (in Dutch). Retrieved 15 December 2015.
  3. ^ "Astrid Roemer wins prestigious PC Hooft literary award", Dutch News, 15 December 2015.
  4. ^ "Dutch Caribbean Writer Astrid Roemer Wins Prestigious Dutch Literary Award", Afro Republic, 15 December 2015.
  5. ^ Jordens, Peter (27 May 2016). "Author Astrid H. Roemer Receives 2016 P.C. Hooft Prize". Repeating Islands.
  6. ^ "Astrid Roemer". The Booker Prizes. Retrieved 2 April 2025.
  7. ^ a b c d e "P.C. Hooftprijs toegekend aan schrijfster Astrid Roemer". De Volkskrant (in Dutch). 15 December 2015. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Fortuin, Arjen (15 December 2015). "P.C. Hooftprijs 2016 naar Astrid H. Roemer -". NRC Handelsblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 15 December 2015.
  9. ^ a b Bel, Jacqueline; Vaessens, Thomas (2010). Women's Writing from the Low Countries 1880–2010: An Anthology. Amsterdam University Press. pp. 195–97. ISBN 978-9089641939.
  10. ^ a b c "P.C. Hooft-prijs 2016 voor Astrid Roemer". Het Parool (in Dutch). 15 December 2015. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
  11. ^ "Filmpremière: Astrid H. Roemer, De wereld heeft gezicht verloren" (in Dutch). Stichting Democratie en Media. 7 December 2015. Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
  12. ^ "P.C. Hooft-prijs 2016" (in Dutch). P. C. Hooft Award. Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
  13. ^ "Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren voor Surinaamse auteur Astrid Roemer". nos.nl (in Dutch). 20 March 2021. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
  14. ^ "Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren - Astrid Roemer". prijsderletteren.org. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
  15. ^ "The 2023 National Book Awards Longlist: Translated Literature". The New Yorker. 13 September 2023. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
  16. ^ Tepper, Anderson (7 April 2024). "You Know Marlon James and Edwidge Danticat. Now Meet Astrid Roemer". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 April 2025.
  17. ^ Marshall, Alex (25 February 2025). "Short Novels Dominate International Booker Prize Nominees". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 February 2025.
  18. ^ Creamer, Ella (25 February 2025). "All 13 writers on International Booker longlist are first-time nominees". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 April 2025.
  19. ^ "Off-White". Publishers Weekly. 25 January 2024. Retrieved 2 April 2025.
  20. ^ Extract in Margaret Busby (ed.), Daughters of Africa, London: Jonathan Cape, 1992, pp. 725–32.
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