The book is as much the result of his ten journeys through the Democratic Republic of the Congo as of the months spent in libraries and archives. Over the years, Van Reybrouck has travelled extensively throughout Africa. Een geschiedenis (in English: Congo: The Epic History of a People) was published in 2010. The latter won the Netherlands' most distinguished essay prize. A longtime op-ed writer for the Flemish national newspaper De Morgen, Van Reybrouck has co-edited a volume on the federal future of Belgium ( What Belgium Stands For: a Scenario, 2007) and a thought-provoking pamphlet, Pleidooi voor populisme ( A Plea for Populism, 2008), which was met with controversy. It was translated into Afrikaans, French and Hungarian. It received several awards, including the prize for the best Flemish debut in 2002 and a shortlist nomination for the Gouden Uil, one of the leading literary prizes in the Low Countries. Van Reybrouck's first book, De Plaag (in English: The Plague), was a cross between a travelogue and a literary whodunnit set in post-apartheid South Africa. He holds a doctorate from Leiden University. His father, a farmer's son, spent five years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a railway engineer immediately after independence. Van Reybrouck was born into a family of florists, bookbinders and artists.
He has received several Dutch literary prizes, including AKO Literature Prize (2010) and Libris History Prize. He writes historical fiction, literary non-fiction, novels, poetry, plays and academic texts. David Grégoire Van Reybrouck (born 11 September 1971, in Bruges) is a Belgian cultural historian, archaeologist and author.
0 kommentar(er)
