You will encounter happiness, sadness, prosperity and adversity in the short portraits. “It is not about people who just go to Dirk van den Broek. They are core passages about people who have just experienced or are going to experience something,” says Nieuwenhuis.
We meet Erik Nieuwenhuis at the starting stop of Line 1 at the Hortus in Amsterdam. The tram crosses Amsterdam from the Plantagebuurt, past the Leidseplein, the Overtoom and then towards Osdorp. “You actually go on a journey from chic, touristy to concrete and flats and ultimately a kind of Vinex suburb,” says Erik.
In the book Line1 you also make the journey and the reader meets dozens of tram passengers: a failed artist, an abandoned woman, a stoned backpacker, a vagabond, a released criminal, a girl who decides not to go to school today.
Tragedy seems to be the greatest common denominator. “Literature cannot do without tragedy,” says Erik with a smile on his face. “It is also a way for me to stay on top of things, it can always be worse. At the same time, to give hope and draw hope from it. Even at the bottom of the well there is still poetry.”
