My Grandfather's Heaven

Since the publication of Oorlog en terpentijn [War and Turpentine] (2013; AKO Literature Prize, 2014), Stefan Hertmans has been considered to be one of the most successful authors of the Dutch-speaking world. He has received a whole series of awards for his work, including the Constantijn Huygens Prize for his oeuvre in 2020, and, being a " truly European writer" (Literaturpreis Leuk, 2017), the international Swiss literary prize Spycher: Literaturpreis Leuk in 2017.

Stefan Hertmans' work did not conquer the German market overnight. In 1995, his text for four voices Kopnaad was translated (and entered added to the theatre titles of S. Fischer), but ultimately did not go on sale in bookstores. In 1998 the play was broadcast as a radio play (rebroadcast in 2008).

In 1997, three years after its publication in the Dutch language area, the translation of Naar Merelbeke was published by Kiepenheuer under the title Amselbach.

The German press was rather sceptical about this "phantasmagorically defamiliarised childhood story" (Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin, 2017). According to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Hertmans' approach of the past was "not bold enough" (Diekmann, 1997) and in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Helmuth Kiesel wrote that he appreciates the many passages with "great suggestive power" (Kiesel, 1997), but that the book as a whole still failed to convince him:

“Cities, like people, can be recognised by their gait”. With this sentence Stefan Hertmans opened the chapter "Vienna" in the anthology Steden [Towns], on which he worked in 1997 while staying in the Austrian capital as a writer in residence and teaching Viennese students of Dutch. During his stay the chapter on Vienna was translated into German, but the translation did not go on sale.

Stefan Hertmans experienced an exciting and creative time in Vienna, it would have been an obvious choice for the the anthology he worked on during his stay to also have been published by an Austrian publisher. Unfortunately, this plan that had to be abandoned.

In 2001, the first poems by Stefan Hertmans appeared in German translation with the publishing house Athena in Oberhausen. The translator was Heinrich G.F. Schneeweiß, who by then had already translated the poetry of a whole series of famous Dutch-language poets: Sybren Polet, Gerrit Kouwenaar, Cees Buddingh', Bert Schierbeek, Remco Campert, Simon Vinkenoog, Herman de Coninck, Guido Gezelle, Lucebert, etc.).

Actually, Athena is a publishing house for specialist literature from the broad spectrum of the humanities and sociology. The number of Athena's literary titles is rather small. They primarily publish works by young German-language poets but occasionally also translations from other literatures. It was therefore an honour to be included in the Athena fund, although the audience was small.

The international interest in the book was considerable, not in the least because of the "tragic Jubilee" (Naegelen, 2014) of the centenary of the First World War. In order to sell the translation rights, even a kind of auction was organised. For the German-speaking region, Hanser finally won the bid. Der Himmel meines Großvaters appeared in 2014 in translation by Ira Wilhelm, who had previously translated Hertmans' poetry for the anthology Keine triste Isolde (2007). Expectations were high, as evidenced by the fact that the Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported on the book being award the AKO Literature Prize even before it hit German bookstores.

"More tenderly, more touchingly, has a recognition, a bridging of the ages rarely been staged." (Seibt, 2014) writes the Südddeutsche Zeitung; Deutschlandfunk finds the book important addition to the "collective history" (Schumacher, 2014) and for the TAZ Der Himmel meines Großvaters is not only a "beautiful and informative book" but also a book from which Germans can learn something about their relationship with the "history of the past century" (Wackwitz, 2014). In Deutschlandfunk, the book was presented as "a difficult and highly successful exercise in trying to understand how an average Flemish person experienced the First World War". (Mühleis, 2015)

This did not change much either, when publisher Diogenes republished Ira Wilhelm's translation four years later (the book had been on the Booker Prize longlist the year before). The metaphorical title Der Himmel meines Großvaters, was exchanged for a literal translation of the original title Krieg und Terpentin.

Krieg und Terpentin was generally well received:

In 2017, the German translation of De bekeerlinge [The Converted] (2016) appeared under the title Die Fremde with Hanser in Munich. For her "exceedingly reflective, very demanding and sovereign" (Bach, 2019) work Ira Wilhelm was awarded the Else-Otten-Preis in 2018.

In Die Fremde, Hertmans tells the story of a woman who leaves her family and converts to marry the son of a Rabbi: a fateful decision. They can not find a sanctuary and eventually the family falls victim to a progrom of the Crusaders.

Die Fremde attracted attention. Not only because it is a "captivating reading " (Löffler, 2017) but also because the book is a mirror of "our contemporary world of migrants " (Löffler, 2017).

When Die Fremde appeared in Germany, the attacks in Paris and Brussels were still fresh in the minds. The trail to the perpetrators of the attacks led among other places to Molenbeek, a quarter of Brussels that Stefan Hertmans knows well.

As a witness, he was in great demand for interviews. As early as 2015, Stefan Hertmans was asked for his opinion on the situation in Brussels (Bartels, 2015). During this time, Stefan Hertmans became a household name.

The pendulum of the world is the heart of Antigone (Marguerite Yourcenar)

Under this motto, Stefan Hertmans adapted the Greek tragedy Antigone in 2016/2017 and moved the story to Molenbeek. The play which, like Kopnaad, was included among S. Fischer's theatre titles, was translated into German by Ira Wilhelm and first performed on 30. September 2017 in Münster (Directors Carolin M. Wirth and Carsten Bender). Five years later, the story of Nouria, who wants to bury the corpse of her brother who fought for the IS and died in an attack, is part of the programme of the digital Lessingtage of the theatre network mitos21. The name Stefan Hertmans is now definitively closely linked to the debate on terrorism, migration and European identity.

It was thus no coincidence that Stefan Hertmans was invited to Schloss Bellevue in 2017 to talk to the German Federal President about identities and forms of cohabitation in countries of immigration,

This meeting in turn led to the invitation to talk at the Frankfurter Buchmesse in 2018, the year that Die Fremde was published, together with the Croatian writer Ivana Sajko and Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier about the topic of 'How we defend freedom in turbulent times’. (#Fairs)

In 2002, Hertmans' Der Aufgang was published, no longer with Hanser but Diogenes, where a reissue of Die Fremde had previously appeared. Der Aufgang is a portrait of another era, this time the Second World War. The main character is the Flemish SS man Willem Verhulst, who betrays his compatriots during the war. Opposite Verhulst is his wife Mientje, a convinced pacifist.

The book is discussed on various radio stations and will soon appear on the bestseller lists. (WDR, Rbb, SWR-Bestenliste place 6).

According to Sigrid Löffler, Stefan Hertmans presents himself as a new W. G. Seebald with Der Aufgang. The "Stylistic image" (Löffler, 2017) of Seebald is clearly recognisable, but, according to her, Hertmans refines it "to Enlightenment Art " (Löffler, 2017). A greater compliment is barely conceivable.