Essays
Nikos Kazantzakis and the Temptations of Writing
‘Kazantzakis was a writer in constant conflict with his verbal idiom and in structural collision with language itself. Whoever reads his novels is impressed (or annoyed) by the gothic grandiosity of his rhetoric, the romantic extremism of his contradictions, the quest for a certain redemption that never comes and finally, his relentless efforts to construct a literary work that would fuse genres, forms and styles. And here exactly lies his significance as a writer.’
The Last Great Author of Curaçao? On Frank Martinus Arion
The most famous writer of the Netherlands Antilles appeared on the rooftop, wearing what seemed like a doctor’s short-sleeved shirt. Under the parted wiry hair, his shaven ebony face was awash with the dark blue hues made by the sunlight breaking through the blue vinyl covering of the bar. Arion’s poems, at times mystical, speak of how the Antillean poet senses himself loved by the elements on the island where he was born. The breeze is known to be more forgiving on Cura√ßao, dreamier, and kinder than on Aruba, where physicians say the constant, pushy north-east wind provokes disease in the muscles and the spine. This superstition was confirmed as soon Arion sat down before me: a gust entered his physician’s shirt through the collar, pushing the buttoned fabric outwards, as if tugging at him.