Writer, translator and multilingualism coordinator Baukje Zijlstra is departing for a three-week writing residency in Barcelona. From 10 April to 4 May, she will work in the UNESCO City of Literature on her new book with the working title Diggelfjoer/Alfabetysk labyrint (St. Elmo’s Fire/Alphabetic Labyrinth).
Baukje: ‘What a privilege to work on this new book for three weeks in multilingual book capital and sister City of Literature Barcelona. And to do so during a period that includes 23 April: World Book Day (and commemoration day of Cervantes and Shakespeare) and Sant Jordi, a celebration of love and literature, roses and books. I look forward to an exchange of inspiration and knowledge with fellow writers and book professionals.’
About the book
Together with Pytrik Lautenbach and Pier Landman – her fellow writer-researchers from the artistic research project If writing is the art/Il mondo reverso – Zijlstra is attempting to reconstruct the life and work of Dada poet and artist Hannah Tesselschade (ca. 1895-1989).
As far as is known, all of Hannah’s work was made and kept in bookshop It Labyrint in Langerhin during the interbellum. Unfortunately, It Labyrint was destroyed by a major fire in 2023, during the celebration of the shop’s 150th anniversary. Tesselschade’s work was lost in the fire. The trio is attempting to piece Hannah’s world together from stories about her life, from memories of the works and artefacts found during the renovation of the shop in 2021, and from the life and work of similar female Dadaists.
This fits well within the period and Dada movement in which Hannah’s work was created. After all, Dada was also made from the fragments (diggels) of a broken world. And despite the nihilism Dada is known for, Dadaists were simultaneously desperately searching for a new world, a new language, a new story. The question is: who has the power to make people believe which stories are true and which are not?
About Baukje Zijlstra
Baukje Zijlstra previously worked as an editor for an archaeological consultancy firm and various publishers. She has published stories and articles in Frisian literary magazine Ensafh, cultural magazine de Moanne, and literary magazine De Revisor, among others. She has won several awards for both Frisian and Dutch-language stories, including three Rely Jorritsma Prizes. In 2019, Baukje received the D.A. Tamminga Prize for the best Frisian-language prose debut of the previous five years for her novel De koma-korrektor. In 2020 and 2021, she translated the National Book Week Gift into Frisian. In 2022, she graduated from the Master of Arts Education with an artistic research project on writing in intermediate language.
Photo: Natalia Balanina
