Welcome to Dutch poetry - January 2006

 
Sunday 1 January 2006

A new year has started and a new issue is here. In 2006, just as in the previous two years, we’ll supply you with at least four doses of vivid and vitalising Dutch poetry, new translations, interesting articles, additional information and links to related sites on the internet. And now, accompanied by our best wishes to all of our visitors, we bring you the first new poet of the new year: Mustafa Stitou.

Mustafa Stitou (1974, Tetouan, Morocco) grew up in the Dutch town of Lelystad and moved to Amsterdam in 1995. At the young age of nineteen, his first poetry collection Mijn vormen (My forms, 1994) was published and then nominated for the C. Buddingh’ Prize, the most important Dutch prize for debut poetry collections. Ten years later, in May 2004, his third collection Varkensroze ansichten (Pig-pink picture postcards, 2003) was awarded the prestigious VSB Poetry Prize, marking out Stitou as one of Holland’s most promising young contemporary poets.

In this new issue we feature twelve of Stitou’s poems in Dutch and English, and include an interview that was written just one month before the poet received the VSB Poetry Prize. We believe this (slightly re-edited) interview offers a solid introduction to his poetics as well as illuminating remarks on his work by the poet himself.

Enjoy the year, enjoy the read, we’ll meet again in March!