This article is based on this Dutch article of Martijn Benders
The Disappearance of Bertus Dijk
I came across the poems of Nicanor Parra with tears in my eyes, which were once translated into Dutch by Bertus Dijk, a name that didn’t release much dopamine in my brain. A brief search led me to this page:
Bertus Dijk apparently didn’t enjoy a long literary life in the Netherlands:
Two books of his are available:
Words Against Destruction is the poetry of Janos Pilinszky. Is Bertus Dijk the source for the Dutch interest in Pilinszky’s work?
Each resistance is mercilessly suppressed. In bringing the Lusitanian, Christian civilization, corporal punishment is indispensable. One such tool is the palmatoria, a short stick with a thick disc at the end, which, to increase the pain, is perforated with five holes. With this, the ‘black Portuguese’ are beaten by the administration and the colonists.
While almost all African countries have long been independent, in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, in the second half of the twentieth century, the most backward country of Europe still practices old-fashioned colonialism. In maintaining this system, fascist Portugal receives moral and material support from its NATO allies. Under the banner of ‘democracy, peace, freedom, and civilization,’ human rights are trampled, and Africans are slaughtered.
Bertus Dijk – Source: DNBL
Those are heavy words, making me even more concerned about why Bertus Dijk seems to have enjoyed such a short literary existence. The last sign of life from Bertus can be found in a Vrij Nederland from 1989, where he places a poem by the Galician poet Manuel Maria:
Song of the Thunderstorm
In our land, it always storms; always;
it thunders and lightnings fiercely.
The thunderstorm is capricious, stubborn:
there is no sign of it abating.
For centuries, it has been storming. The storm
each time is fiercer, darker.
And we sit here, alone, doing nothing
but wait, angrily and gloomily.
It rains torrents, it flashes.
A black cloud covers the sky.
People, desperate, mute, alone,
have lost all hope, laughter, dreams.
The rain continues. The thunderstorm rattles terrifyingly.
The lightning wounds, kills, burns everything.
It is a storm that does not clear up.
It is a storm that does not pass.
Manuel Maria
(Songs Between Light and Darkness (Canciós do lusco ó fusco). A bilingual collection by the Galician poet Manuel Maria. Translation by Bertus Dijk with a short introduction by D. Prieto Alonso. Publisher Goossens)
That is once again, strong language after almost ten years of silence. And then? I can’t find anything, except for this deadly review from a Christian perspective, which I can’t read due to a paywall, but the title says enough:
Disgruntled Philosophy Student Airs Dirty Laundry
Here we have it again, the same ‘literary brotherhood’ that has put so much effort into frustrating my existence. A country where it always storms, a beautiful metaphor by Manuel Maria, a poet I plan to explore just as I plan to explore the works of Bertus Dijk.
Poems I just wrote:
