New Dutch Writing. Jaguarman: Raoul de Jong

‘The whole adventure started after I met my Black, Surinamese father for the first time when I was 28. My mother is white, Dutch, and until I met my father I knew as much about Suriname as the average Dutch person: almost nothing. Meeting my father made me curious for the first time, about everything I didn’t know. But when my father disappeared again, very quickly, I had to find other voices that could speak for him. I went to the biggest bookstore in my town, hoping to find a Surinamese version of James Baldwin or Maya Angelou or Martin Luther King (because we do know Black American heroes in the Netherlands)… they told me they didn’t exist. And so I started to search myself, and found out that these people did and do exist actually, but that they have been silenced in the most violent ways. For seven years I dived into a very dark history, that showed me hell on earth and humanity’s ugliest side. This book is an ode to the light that I found in that history. I wrote for myself, for my father, for all these writers that came before me who were pointing towards the light… and for the future.’ Raoul de Jong 

This event is part of New Dutch Writing. Supported by the Dutch Foundation for Literature