A remarkable cry for help from a well-known writer – that’s what you could call the short essay that Ted van Lieshout wrote for the April issue of the literary magazine Tirade wrote. The issue is dedicated to endangered and banned literature.
“I am slowly disappearing from time,” writes Van Lieshout in the opening paragraph. “I don’t have to be dead for that. I see it happening and there’s no point in fighting it. Accepting it, accepting that it is, takes time. I don’t know if I have it.”
Van Lieshout (67) is an acclaimed children’s book author who did not shy away from topics such as homosexuality and pedophilia in his books, even though he occasionally came under criticism. With regret he sees how the role of the children’s book author has changed in recent years. “He (also read: her) is now expected to write more diverse and inclusive. So more about children of color and with a bicultural background and also more about sexual orientation and gender. That sounds good; however, there is a ‘but’ to it.”
He explains that the books now have to meet the standards and values of the parents and carers of those children. Also, as an author you are no longer allowed to put yourself in the shoes of a person from another culture, because that is called ‘cultural appropriation’. Van Lieshout: “I notice that my ideal, to be an autonomous artist for children, is under attack and I experience that as paralyzing. My aging mind and body can’t handle that.” He reveals that he has already canceled two books in their entirety and has “subjected to self-censorship” two others.
Van Lieshout complains, but does not resist. “I have to accept it,” he concludes. “Because it’s not my future they want these changes for, it’s theirs, so I shouldn’t get in the way. I have to take a step aside and other than that I only have to make sure I don’t languish.”
I understand his resigned attitude, but at the same time I am very sorry. In the first place, he seriously fails himself as a writer. Leaving books unfinished or subjecting them to self-censorship – isn’t that already a form of ‘withering away’ for a writer? Couldn’t he make better use of his great reputation by adopting a more combative attitude? He would also be doing his younger colleagues a great service. If he prefers to avoid public debate, he could at least continue to write the books that come to his mind.
Earlier this year, Pim Lammers withdrew as the writer of the Children’s Book Week poem after death threats because of his story ‘Trainer’ about a pedophile relationship.
In this way gay-hating football hooligans and political inciters such as Wybren van Haga, who cornered Lammers, get their way very generously. What this can lead to can be read in the rest of the aforementioned issue of Tirade: censorship, book destruction, persecution. The Russian dissident poet Dimitri Bykov writes in a poem about Putin’s ideas: ‘How else do our newspapers read:/ so untruthful, so meek/ that they burn with sheer shame – Europe will never experience that.’ Bykov was almost successfully poisoned by Russian Security Service officers in 2018.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of April 21, 2023.