Poets

Anneke Brassinga was born on August 20, 1948 in Schaarsbergen. When she was a year old, her parents moved to nearby Arnhem, where she later walked through the hbs-A. The six-member family didn’t have it wide. As a child, Anneke wanted to become a biologist, and she walked a lot in the Gelderland forests. Since 1967 she lives in Amsterdam, but she also likes to stay in the (savage) nature. She traveled to India, Iceland, Ireland and Scotland, preferably to ‘the middle of nowhere’ in those countries.

From 1967 to 1972, Brassinga studied literary translator at the Institute of Translation of the University of Amsterdam. From 1974, translations of her hand appeared. For the translation of Nabokov’s De gift, she refused the Nijhoff Prize in 1977 because she, together with many other translators, considered that the jury of the prize had compromised in the previous year by not awarding the prize.

Brassinga translated, in addition to an impressive amount of difficult novels, also poetry by Sylvia Plath, Hart Crane, Ingeborg Bachmann and Michael Hoftman. She wrote essays on authors she translated and published literary prose.

As a literary prosaist, Brassinga debuted under the pseudonym A. Gardener in the first issue of De Revisor (1974), with the text ‘From a diary’. Her first translations and essays also appeared in De Revisor – at the time the stage for a new generation of young, highly foreign literature-oriented literators. As a poet, Brassinga made informal debuts in 1985 with the bibliophile issued Brassinga’s debut, for which she was awarded the Trevanian Prize. That collection was included in Aurora (1987), the official debut From that moment all her own books appeared at De Bezige Bij. In 1989 the collection Landgoed was published, for which Brassinga received the Herman Gorterprijs – poetry prize of the city of Amsterdam. Her literary prose book Hapschaar was awarded the ECI literature prize in 2001, the poetry collection Huisraad (1998) with the Paul Snoek Prize in 2001 and the poetry collection Verschiet (2001) both with the Ida Gerhardt Poetry Prize 2002 and with the prestigious VSB poetry prize 2002.

In 1988, Anneke Brassinga married the bibliophile printer and graphic artist Peter Yvon de Vries. In 1993 they moved to Zutphen. From the studio ‘De Elzeprop’, on the former estate ‘De Elze’ near Eefde, they together showed a stream of beautiful bibliophile printed matter: both own work and that of fellow poets, both occasional poems and publications for friends and bundles. The divorce in the late 1990s, as well as the simultaneous loss of her mother and several friends, gripped Brassinga very much. Since then she has been living in Amsterdam again, with a break of one year (2003-2004) in which she inhabited the Theo van Doesburghuis in Meudon, near Paris.

Brassinga published in many newspapers and literary magazines, including Hollands Maandblad, NRC Handelsblad de Volkskrant, De Gids, Tirade, Dietsche Warande & Belfort, De Reoisor, New Foundland, Maatstaff and Raster. From 1995 to 1998 she was part of the editors of Dietsche Warande & Belfort, she has been a member of the editorial board ever since. Her poems were translated into German, French, English, Russian, Hungarian and Spanish. On the poem ‘Schrenslompen’ a choreography was made by Wies Bloemen, with music by Ian Willcock.

 

 

Bibliography

Poetry

• Aurora (1987)
• Landgoed (1989)
• Thule (1991)
• Zeemeeuw in boomvork (1994)
• Huisraad (1998)
• Verschiet (2001)
• Timiditeiten (2003)
• Wachtwoorden. Verzamelde herziene gedichten, 1987-2003. (2005)(with cd)
  • Wachtwoorden. Verzamelde herziene gedichten, 1987-2015. (2015)
• IJsgang (2006)
• Ontij (2010)
• Het wederkerige (2014)
• Verborgen tuinen (2019)

Prose

• Hartsvanger (1993)
• Hapschaar (1998, 2018) – short stories
• Het zere been (2002) – essays
• Tussen vijf en twaalf (2005) – letters
• Bloeiend puin (2008) – essays
• as co-author: Het zere been: essays & diversen (2015)
• Grondstoffen (2015) – essays

Awards

• 2015: P.C. Hooft Award for her poetry
• 2008:Constantijn Huygens Prize for her overall oeuvre
• 2005:Anna Bijns Prize for Timiditeiten
• 2002:VSB Poetry Award for Verschiet
• 2002:Ida Gerhardt Poëzieprijs for Verschiet
• 2001:ECI Prize
• 2001:Paul Snoek Prize for Huisraad
• 1990:Herman Gorter Prize for Landgoed
• 1985:Trevanian Poetry Prize