At the Crossing Border literature and music festival, the audience is as eclectic as the programming. The stairs of the Royal Theater in The Hague are climbed by all generations. Of course, the seasoned literature lovers will be there, plastic cup of red wine in one hand, book to be signed in the other hand – the real connoisseur is not afraid of a good cliché. Furthermore, the audience is a refreshingly cheerful patchwork of generations and nationalities. There are men in cycling suits (“We have come to cycle”), a woman who pounds open the doors of the main hall with her walker and several babies in baby carriers. Yet, in addition to a love for music and literature, similarities can be discovered in both the audience and the programming. The public is crazy about the walking shoe: from ironically hip to practically supportive. And there is no escaping world politics.
Pleasure of deception
The Italian writer Sandro Veronesi talks about his book at the start of the first festival evening on Friday Black September. The book is set in the 1970s on the Italian coast, in which a main character falls in love with a black girl. He tells how he himself thought for a long time that Italy was not that racist. But, he says, “We have always been racist.”
A door further, after interviewer Ronit Palache makes it clear with a stern look that the baby present would be better off making noise elsewhere, National Bookwinner Justin Torres talks with Palache about his book Blackouts. Whether he doesn’t mind being referred to as queer writer? “No,” says Torres. “I am queer. And a writer.” Political polarization is touched upon during the conversation. Discussions and different opinions are not the problem, according to Torres. “You should be concerned when the conversation stops.”
It is urgent to get a spot for the conversation between the South African artist William Kentridge and interviewer Sascha Bronwasser. He draws, animates, makes installations, sets, operas. His work is political, there is no escaping that. Growing up during apartheid – his parents were anti-apartheid lawyers – and the Cold War, he has always looked for ways to understand the world outside his studio through art. He talks about the pleasure of deception and the power of it. How he looked at a self-portrait by Rembrandt and his brain automatically made a person from a few brushstrokes. “The transformation from paint to flesh, you can’t help but believe in it,” he says.
Poet Antjie Krog, also from South Africa, has stopped writing, but will still recite her poetry tonight. In the hall, near the bar, there is a pop-up bookshop. Dutch publishers come together with beer and wine. Kentridge signs at a table, takes selfies. Writer Peter Buwalda has just returned from his performance in the Spiegeltent, which is set up outside on the Lange Voorhout.
Rock stars
There, in the same tent, Krog will talk to writer Marijke Schermer about her autobiographical novel during the day’s program. Inner rhyme of blood in which she looks back on the relationship with her mother Dot Serfontein – herself a South African writer. The relationship was difficult, because they were politically opposed to each other. Antjie Krog was active in the anti-apartheid movement, her mother helped the National Party as a propagandist in the introduction of apartheid. Fiction, Krog says, helps to find the truth. A fictional layer can help you really put into words what you want to say. Politically, mother and daughter never found each other. “She stopped reading my work so we could continue our relationship.”
The program is impressive. In the main hall, Yulia Navalnaya speaks about the book that her husband, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, wrote before his death – partly from prison. Patriotit’s called. A word that was stolen by the Kremlin and Putin, she says, but is now being reclaimed by her husband, who had to pay for his love for Russia with death. Don’t forget the Russians, she asks the audience. Not only Putin comes from Russia, but millions of other people, and many of them want democracy.
They still exist, the real rock star authors. The American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates is received with loud cheers. The conversation with Aldith Hunkar about his latest book The Message is passionate, funny, but not very hopeful. In it he describes his travels to Senegal, South Carolina and Palestine, and everywhere he encountered the same colonial systems. “Is there a way out?” Hunkar asks. Coates: “I’m not sure if there is. I’m not the person you can go to for hope.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates at Crossing Border 2025.
Photo Angie Louws
The sun is setting. Antjie Krog browses in the bookstore, there is a video of Kentridge on the dance floor during the afterparty the night before. Music sounds through the walls again. Visual artist Mashid Mohadjerin and musician Jan De Vroede perform together with an installation in the attic. There is a musical saw.
Then it’s time for another rock star, literally. Producer Brian Eno worked with the greats such as U2, David Bowie, Coldplay and Grace Jones. Now he wrote the book with the Amsterdam artist Bette A. What Art Doesas a medicine against what Eno calls ‘art world bullshit’. Whether it is high art – an abstract painting – or low art – A.’s pink painted nails -: art is our only option to make a part of the world exactly as you want it. “If you want a new world,” says Eno, “start making it.” And he encourages the public to seek support from others. “Because the bastards have all the money.”
NEW: Give this item as a gift
As an NRC subscriber you can subscribe every month 10 items give as a gift to someone without an NRC subscription. The recipient can read the article directly, without a paywall.