Buzzin'

From drug fuelled debaucheries in Manchester rave rock bands Happy Mondays and Black Grape to winning Britain’s Celebrity Big Brother in 2005, Mark 'Bez' Berry (1964) has experienced it all. His career was drenched in a blizzard of mind-altering substances and when a journalist asked him why he ingested so much, he briefly answered: “it’s my job”.

Born in Salford, England, to a nurse and a member of an anti-terrorist squad, Bez served three years in a detention centre for a robbery when he was 17 years old.

The extraordinary rollercoaster life of this English percussionist, dancer, DJ and media personality was captured in the colourful book 

, published in 2000. Bez catches up on his new adventures in 

, his new memoir published in October this year.

But of course, it’s best to listen to him talking about it himself. Whether it’s his escapades as a maraca-wielding dancer with the Happy Mondays or his TV performances that earned him enough money to pimp his black cab into a sound system with twenty speakers and fifteen TV screens, Bez can tell it all.

Bez (Happy Mondays)

Ten Thousand Apologies

Adelle Stripe (1976) is an acclaimed novelist, poet and journalist who co-wrote 

, based on the life and work of playwright Andrea Dunbar, was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and Portico Prize for Literature. One interviewer called it ‘a dagger to the heart to read, best devoured in one sitting.’ Stripe focuses on exploring working class culture, untold stories of Northern England, pop music and small town life. 

 evolved out of a long interview with frontman Lias of the band Fat White Family. 

“It’s not very often that you witness that level of authentic derangement,” she said in an interview in 

. The two remained in touch while the band was touring in Europe, and Lias sent parts from his tour diaries. “Which I thought were hilarious and quite accomplished for someone who wasn’t a writer,” said Stripe. “And I knew that with a bit of encouragement I could help develop his voice and maybe use some of it within a wider narrative framework. So I wrote the straight voice and he created a more baroque register.”

Adelle Stripe

Adelle Stripe (1976) is an acclaimed novelist, poet and journalist who co-wrote Ten Thousand Apologies. Her debut novel, Black Teeth And A Brilliant Smile, based on the life and work of

Mythen en stoplichten

“Moments I flee from this body / I flow past the white foam / With the flight of seagulls / Mother's voice rustles in the sea.” So opens 

 (Myths and Traffic Lights), the debut poetry collection of Dutch-Somali poet and author Alara Adilow published in April this year.

Critically acclaimed in The Netherlands, 

 is raw and visceral, tackling themes of gender, queerness and the desire to escape the body. “I am an aesthete: it is about the beauty of language, what constructions and sensations it can produce,” Adilow said recently in an interview in the literary publication, 

 said ofher debut: “It is a strange kind of world into which Adilow draws the reader: dark, fantastic, grotesque, lugubrious. Religion plays a role, from traditional rituals (spiritual exorcisms) to a Marian apparitions; there is talk of fornication, of sexual fantasies about Mark Rutte's 'beautiful white buttocks', of dreams. And there is a longing for 'a space that does not exclude me'.”

 has named Adilow as a potential candidate for top Dutch poetry award the C. Buddingh Prize, and her appearance at Crossing Border promises to awaken a new audience to her sensual world.

Alara Adilow

“Moments I flee from this body / I flow past the white foam / With the flight of seagulls / Mother's voice rustles in the sea.” So opens Mythen en Stoplichten (Myths and Traffic Lights), the debut poetry collection of Dutch-Somali poet and author Alara Adilow published in April this year.

schervenstad

According to Hanan Faour (1998), the best advice she got about writing was not even the writing itself, she explained in an interview two years ago: “Being a writer doesn't mean you always have to just write: sometimes I don’t write for weeks and then it almost feels like I'm pretending to be a writer, but I learned during the training that my writing process consists of much more. I draw, code, make spotify lists and photoshop receipts: these things don't always come up in a story, but they are part of my creative process. That, too, for me is part of writing and being a writer.”

Faour is a Dutch-Lebanese writer who tells stories in text, images and HTML. She graduated from Creative Writing ArtEZ, where she now also teaches, and she won the El Hizjra Literature Prize. 

 is her debut novel. In her book we follow the twins Nadine and Isaac. At the age of fourteen they are separated because of their parents' divorce. Isaac leaves with his Lebanese father to his native country, Nadine stays behind with her Dutch mother. Then the world is startled by an explosion in the port of Beirut. Though she hasn't seen her twin brother in over ten years, Nadine knows one thing for certain: she must go there.

Hanan Faour

According to Hanan Faour (1998), the best advice she got about writing was not even the writing itself, she explained in an interview two years ago: “Being a writer doesn't mean you always have to just write: sometimes I don’t write for weeks and then it almost feels like I'm pretending to be a writer, but I learned during the training that my writing process consists of much more. I draw, code, make spotify lists and photoshop receipts: these things don't always come up in a story, but they are part of my creative process. That, too, for me is part of writing and being a writer.”

Faour is a Dutch-Lebanese writer who tells stories in text, images and HTML. She graduated from Creative Writing ArtEZ, where she now also teaches, and she won the El Hizjra Literature Prize. Schervenstad is her debut novel. In her book we follow the twins Nadine and Isaac. At the age of fourteen they are separated because of their parents' divorce. Isaac leaves with his Lebanese father to his native country, Nadine stays behind with her Dutch mother. Then the world is startled by an explosion in the port of Beirut. Though she hasn't seen her twin brother in over ten years, Nadine knows one thing for certain: she must go there.

Hannalore Daudeij (1997) recently earned a master’s degree in Literary Translation at Utrecht University. She graduated cum laude from the bachelor English Literature and Culture previously. She specialised in English literature during this study and she discovered her love for the art of translation. Since then she has set her mind on becoming a translator. She’s currently at the start of her career, and she can’t wait to obtain her first book translation.

Hannalore Daudeij

Lias Saoudi and Ensemble is the new band from Fat White Family frontman Lias Saoudi. A hypnotizing soundscape of spoken word, harmonious singing, dreamy strings, haunting keyboards and guitar – quite the opposite of Fat White Family’s furious sonic storms.

, chronicling the rowdy and often hilarious story of the cult band fat White Family.

Lias Saoudi and Ensemble

The child of two cultures from both sides of the Mediterranean, Sofiane Boussahel (1978) was born in the Flemish part of Northern France. After having first worked as an opera dramaturge, musicologist and teacher, he has more recently translated one hundred of Beethoven's letters, essays by Theodor W. Adorno, contemporary German plays (Wolfram Lotz, Dorian Brunz) from German into French. He is currently working on a book by Bodo Mrozek on pop music and youth culture. Boussahel received his training at the Centre européen de traduction littéraire, and he regularly participates in translation workshops and courses on translating Dutch and Flemish literature into French.

Sofiane Boussahel

Oriana Ikomo - YOU

Belgian musician Oriana Ikomo wraps her neo-soul and RnB vocals in jazz harmonies and electronic rhythms to create a gentle, comforting texture. Her unique sound was created during her studies at the Ghent Conservatory, and her debut single '

' (2021) is a beautiful introduction to her delicate vocal qualities and dreamy atmosphere. It is a song about love and self-acceptance in the difficult times in which we live.

"Empathy should be the base of every relationship,” she has observed. “But sometimes even the people you love and who are the closest to you can suddenly seem very distant and feel apathetic. Alienation, especially in these times, is something that is becoming more and more common.

 is not a song about heartbreak. It is about the phase after the sadness and the anger. The phase where you begin to quietly regain hope that you can find the connections you once lost with others."

Oriana Ikomo

Belgian musician Oriana Ikomo wraps her neo-soul and RnB vocals in jazz harmonies and electronic rhythms to create a gentle, comforting texture. Her unique sound was created during her studies at the Ghent Conservatory, and her debut single 'You' (2021) is a beautiful introduction to her delicate vocal qualities and dreamy atmosphere. It is a song about love and self-acceptance in the difficult times in which we live.

Exces

“Literature keeps the desire for connection burning,” said the Dutch writer Persis Bekkering last year. Bekkering made her debut with the novel 

 in 2018, which was nominated for the ANV Debutantenprijs.

 (2021), which positions the rave movement as the ritual farewell to the future, was nominated for the BNG Bank Literature Prize. “A vision that winds its way – sweaty and pumping, ecstatic and dangerous – from Amsterdam in 1988, across dance floors of Berlin, New York and London to a cyberspace in lockdown in 2020,” writes Kurt Snoekx about it in 

Bekkering also writes essays, columns, literary and art criticism for, among others, 

. She teaches creative writing at ArtEZ in Arnhem.

Persis Bekkering

“Literature keeps the desire for connection burning,” said the Dutch writer Persis Bekkering last year. Bekkering made her debut with the novel Een Heldenleven in 2018, which was nominated for the ANV Debutantenprijs.

Afropeaan

“The idea that a black person travels through Europe is radical for many people,” wrote writer, photographer and television journalist Johnny Pitts this year in Dutch newspaper 

Pitts grew up in the British city of Sheffield to a black father and white mother. In 2013 he travelled across Europe, hoping to discover what it meant to be a Black European. With a camera and notebook, he sifted through fragmented identities in search of black voices and an Afro-European identity.

The journey started in his hometown and took him to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, Moscow, Marseille, Rome and Lisbon. Everywhere he met Europeans with African roots who forged new identities. His book 

 is an impressive account of that search for what connects black Europeans.

“At the end of my journey, I felt optimistic, on a personal level,” he told an interviewer. “I have woven a foundation for my life. I saw Europe through different eyes, and I hope readers can too.”

Johny Pitts

“The idea that a black person travels through Europe is radical for many people,” wrote writer, photographer and television journalist Johnny Pitts this year in Dutch newspaper Volkskrant.

Irene de la Torre Perelló (Madrid, 1988) is full-time freelance translator since 2014, combining literary translations with the translation of documents from Dutch, English, French and Catalan into Spanish. In 2017-2019 she was selected to participate in the European project CELA (Connecting Emerging Literary Artists) as a translator from Dutch into Spanish, where she translated the work of Joost Oomen, Simone Atangana Bekono and Lotte Lentes. She has published translations of Philip Ball, Lotte Lentes, Auke Kok and Rachida Lamrabet, among others. She has published translations and her own work in literary magazines and fanzines. She is currently preparing her first collection of short stories.

Irene de la Torre

Vermogen

"I like to play to readers' expectations and then make fun of them," Diaz said in an interview once, and visitors to Crossing Border in 2019 were delighted to be part of that experience when he recited from his first novel 

Now the Pulitzer and PEN/Faulkner finalist is back with 

, his new book published in September. It is the second masterful novel by an author whose books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

 we travel through a novel spanning more than a century, in which Diaz elegantly allows competing storylines to speak to each other. We meet Benjamin and Helen Rask. Everyone in roaring twenties New York has heard of the legendary Wall Street tycoon and the daughter of an eccentric aristocrat. Together they have reached the top of a world of seemingly endless wealth, but there are rumours. What was the price they had to pay for it? That's the mystery at the heart of the successful 1930s novel 

 examines their tale from the perspective of different literary approaches.

Although Hernan Díaz (1973) was born in Argentina and grew up in Sweden, he has spent most of his life in America. He sees himself as an American writer: “America is the country I love most and that has shaped me both personally and literary,” he says.

Hernan Diaz

"I like to play to readers' expectations and then make fun of them," Diaz said in an interview once, and visitors to Crossing Border in 2019 were delighted to be part of that experience when he recited from his first novel In the Distance.

Now the Pulitzer and PEN/Faulkner finalist is back with Trust, his new book published in September. It is the second masterful novel by an author whose books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Aangenaam | Spoken wordvoordracht Daniëlle Zawadi - OMROEP WEST

Daniëlle Zawadi (1999), born in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, writes prose and is a spoken word performer.

Her stories explore what it means to be a young second-generation migrant in the Netherlands, and the differing significance of their Congolese roots for herself and her family. She also explores difficult questions around sexuality, queerness and acceptance amid intergenerational cultural clashes.

In 2021 she made her theater debut with her one-woman show at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival and The Black Achievement Month The Hague. Zawadi also hosts her own evenings with her platform for Hague poets, Zwart Schaap, and is coordinator of the Poetry Circle 070. In 2020 Zawadi won the Black Indigenous People of Color Voice Award at the 1st Queer & Feminist Poetry Awards.

Daniëlle Zawadi

Onder asfalt

Writer and poet Maarten van der Graaff (1978) presents his new novel 

. In its enigmatic pages we are taken to a future world where angels appear looking for answers, highways disappear, and a woman finds a mysterious bin full of old index cards.

Van der Graaff made his debut in 2013 with the poetry collection Vluchtautogedichten, which was awarded the C. Buddingh' Prize. A quirky and strong collection, Van der Graaff had said of his work: “Poetry has to be an insult somewhere. It must hurt you and must not be just charming.”

 was published in 2015 and his 2017 debut novel 

 was nominated for the Anton Wachterprijs. In 2020, 

, his third collection of poetry, was published. Van der Graaff is co-founder and editor of the online literary magazine 

Maarten van der Graaff

Writer and poet Maarten van der Graaff (1978) presents his new novel Onder Asfalt. In its enigmatic pages we are taken to a future world where angels appear looking for answers, highways disappear, and a woman finds a mysterious bin full of old index cards.

A Song for Every Chamber of the Heart

Kara Jackson is an American singer-songwriter, musician, award winning poet and writer as well as the daughter of country folk from Oak Park, Illinois. Jackson served as the National Youth Poet Laureate from 2019-2020. She is the author of 

A complex and resilient love permeates her writing, from reflections on body image to poems grappling with her “sort-of” love for her midwestern hometown. She stems from a literary bloodline created by women like Zora Neal Hurston, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Joan Baez. As she writes: “When the day calls I will answer to my name / claim it.”

Jackson made her musical debut with the EP, 

 Her highly anticipated debut album will be released this fall.

“I have ADHD and so I’ve always struggled with living up to this idea of ‘the grind‘, that is, the role of an artist being situated in work and routine,” she said in a recent interview. “I think if anything, I maintain a ritual of art-consuming that helps me make the art I want to make when I’m not being lazy.”

Jackson will be performing her music at Crossing Border.

Kara Jackson

Kara Jackson is an American singer-songwriter, musician, award winning poet and writer as well as the daughter of country folk from Oak Park, Illinois. Jackson served as the National Youth Poet Laureate from 2019-2020. She is the author of Bloodstone Cowboy (2019).

Dutch musician Pitou’s influences were forged in her childhood, when her Amsterdam-based family would travel to countries such as Cameroon and India, bringing home cassettes filled with the sounds they heard there. Pitou was also drawn to classical music at a very young age, and she performed at the baptism of the Princess of the Netherlands, singing the Matthaus Passion.

She was a relative late comer to rock, pop and guitar music, discovering these sounds in her teens, but quickly folded them into her patchwork of influences. These influences are all reflected in her debut album 

, which offers a rich dish of alternative pop, inventive melodic structures, vocal layers, mesmerizing melodies and classical instruments.

“It’s a fable directed towards my younger self,” says Pitou, referring to the time she found a dead bird and imagined a huge eye in the sky shedding a tear.

Pitou

Adri Boon (1961) is a prolific Dutch translator, having translated more than sixty works from Spanish, Catalan, Galician and Portuguese, including works by Isabel Allende, Paulo Coelho, Eduardo Mendoza, Mercè Rodoreda and Fernando Pessoa.

Boon took Spanish lessons in high school, before studying the language first at the University of Amsterdam, then at the University of Madrid. For 

, the jury praised a translation that captured the anarchic spirit of Mallo’s text.

“Adri Boon has delivered a real tour de force here,” the jury concluded. “Those fragments, quotations, references, and text types in different styles presented a huge translation challenge, but the flexibility with which Boon approached the translation is formidable. All the wires must be connected, the quotes and references made legible in another language, while all the time retaining the unique voice of the original. That required not only a depth of understanding of the original text, but also great empathy and inventiveness.”

Adri Boon

The Hague’s secondary education has become a literary hotbed. Huis van Gedichten coached pupils from three different schools in a series of writing classes. In those lessons, the pupils have experienced the relation between poetry and music. 

Broeinest

Dutch poet and spoken word artist Albinus – named by Dutch newspaper 

 as one of the top new talents in 2020 – started writing at the age of 11, composing his first poems five years later and quickly becoming drawn into the immediacy and urgency of spoken-word performance on the internet.

He uses his poetry and performance to explore issues of identity, history, and politics, challenging people to look beyond the surface. “The starting point of spoken word is the performance element of the presentation and a certain necessity in the subjects. It can be poetry, but also rub against other disciplines such as theater and rap. It's a freer form,” he explained in a recent interview.

“I think that many inner worlds of people have not yet been captured in language. There is still something to add. I believe in the power of stories, what they can do for good or ill in society.”

Albinus is a member of the spoken word platform Poetry Circle and was selected by 

 in 2020 as one of the 101 New Talents in the Low Countries. In 2021 he made a triptych about death for the literary organization Mooie Woorden.

Jasper Albinus

Dutch poet and spoken word artist Albinus – named by Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad as one of the top new talents in 2020 – started writing at the age of 11, composing his first poems five years later and quickly becoming drawn into the immediacy and urgency of spoken-word performance on the internet.

Kees Van Kooten te gast bij Wim Helsen in Winteruur

What can be said about famous Dutch comedian and writer Kees van Kooten (1941) that has not already been said? Ground-breaking, pioneering, innovative to the max, grandmaster of the absurd: these are but a few accolades he has rightfully earned with his oeuvre over the years. He had a successful cabaret show with Wim de Bie that lasted for decades and held the Dutch population rapt in front of their TVs. He perfected caricatures of Dutch people and their narrow-minded, ridiculous or downright gross sentiments and customs, but he also has an impressive oeuvre of books and television and radio shows.

At Crossing Border, we are in for a historic night with one of Holland’s most wonderfully absurd minds. And pearls of wisdom too. After all it was Van Kooten who said: “There are more adults afraid in the light than children are in the dark.” And: “If love is the answer, would you mind repeating the question.”

Kees van Kooten 

What can be said about famous Dutch comedian and writer Kees van Kooten (1941) that has not already been said? Groundbreaking, pioneering, innovative to the max, grandmaster of the absurd, these are but a few accolades he has rightfully earned with his oeuvre over the years. He had a successful cabaret show with Wim de Bie that lasted for decades and held almost the entire Dutch population hostage in front of the TV whenever they aired. He perfected the depiction of typical caricatures of Dutch people and their narrow-minded, ridiculous or downright gross sentiments and customs, but he has also made television, radio and an impressive oeuvre of books. We are in for a historic night with one of Holland’s most wonderfully absurd minds. And pearls of wisdom too. After all it was Van Kooten who said: “There are more adults afraid in the light than children are in the dark.” And: “If love is the answer, would you mind repeating the question.”


Crossing Border is delighted to welcome acclaimed US author Bryan Washington, a National Book Award nominee whose most recent novel 

 (2020) ended up on ‘book of the year’ lists of many prestigious publications.

He has enthralled critics with his frank yet tender explorations of race and sexuality in America today and will be joining us for a unique event to discuss the translation process for his first book, 

 a series of interconnected short stories in which we dive into multicultural Texas. We meet a boy of mixed race who discovers he is attracted to men, survivors of a hurricane, young hustlers, and a dealer with a heart in a book full of energy, humour, and power.

 makes it ideally suited for translation by a collection of diverse voices, and this is exactly what its Dutch publisher Nijgh & Van Ditmar has done. In collaboration with Het Nederlands Letterenfonds and the Expertisecentrum Literair Vertalen, 13 up-and-coming Dutch translators set to work on making the pages of Lot come alive in the Dutch language.

This process raised many questions: How do you translate a collection with such a strong sense of place? What do you do with local slang? To what extent does it help if a translator has a personal affinity with the context of a novel? And what does the translation process teach the writer about their own work? Bryan Washington will be discussing this fascinating process alongside a number of his book’s translators.

The Dutch translators are: Janne Van Beek, Stokely Dichtman, Carmen Felix, Reshma Jagernath, Parel Joy, Joost Jung-shik Vormeer, Mijke Hadewey van Leersum, Laila de Miranda, Euphemia Ophelders, Lot Louis Veelenturf , Leen Vertessen, Diahann van van de Vijver and Adiëlle Westercappel.

Bryan Washington

Crossing Border is delighted to welcome acclaimed US author Bryan Washington, a National Book Award nominee whose most recent novel Memorial (2020) ended up on ‘book of the year’ lists of many prestigious publications.

The two musicians of De Witte Kunst often have no idea what they have just performed when their show ends. This is not surprising when you consider that in the beginning of their performing career, multi-instrumentalist Lyckle de Jong and writer-singer Koen van Bommel made sure nothing was pre-arranged. Their first performances were based on tension, improvisation and visual spectacle. Music and lyrics were created on the spot, while Koen could be found dressed with a collar of sandwiches, a burlap sack or baguettes for arms.

“Yes, those were alienating shows,” Koen admitted in an interview with Timo Pisart for 3voor12. “I went looking for the madman in myself.”

De Witte Kunst create songs about dreaming of a better world and how to create a safe place for yourself in an increasingly chaotic existence. Their music almost makes you dizzy, Pisart admits in the introduction to his interview with the two musicians: “Synthetic pop duo De Witte Kunst often mislead you. Their synthpop sounds deceptively frivolous and their shows are crazy dress up parties, but behind them are deep-seated fears.”

Their six-track debut EP of the same name was released in 2020.

De Witte Kunst

The Dutch alternative pop phenomenon Hallo Venray from The Hague is releasing a new album full of happy sad songs: 'Coffee and Cake'. An album that is once again filled with instant Venray classics. Henk Koorn and his band Hallo Venray are actually the Benjamin Button of Dutch indie. Where normal people get older, Koorn and his band seem to get younger and more vital every year. For over 30 years, Koorn, bass guitarist Peter Konings and drummer Henk Jonkers have been making music that is always urgent. They can't help it. The inner necessity of the music splashes out. It swings, it grates, it is lively and melancholy at the same time.

Hallo Venray

Corinne Heyrman (1994) is a writer and podcaster who has recited from her work at Lowlands and Oerol. At Crossing Border, she will recite from her book 

 (The Beginning and Its Infinity). In it, we meet Marcel, who at an advanced age ends up in a psychiatric hospital with depression. He is in the same ward in which his granddaughter stayed years before, being treated for eating disorders.

Heyrman’s work explores the extent to which you choose who you are, and what role hereditary dysregulation plays. When does recovery start and more importantly, when does it end? Full of imagination and empathy, Heyrman dissects the complexity and the many points of view of psychological vulnerability.

Corinne Heyrman

Corinne Heyrman (1994) is a writer, podcast and theatre maker who has recited from her work at Lowlands and Oerol. Now she will recite from her book Het begin en zijn oneindigheid (The Beginning and Its Infinity), where 

Een meedogenloos gehoor

Mauk Westerman Holstijn (1997) studied biotechnology and marine ecology at Wageningen University & Research. He previously published stories in 

. In 2020, he won the Resource literature competition with the story 'Droogte’ (Drought), whose jury was chaired by Louise O. Fresco. 

 is his debut collection of nine short stories. 

“Thematically they are related. It's about certain human feelings that we all recognize. Themes such as isolation, alienation, the way we relate to reality around us, it all may take place in a recognizable world, but I try to make those feelings we have of what we do not understand visible in the story, in a concrete way," Holstijn said about it last February in radio-show 

Nothing is what it seems in his stories. Where everything just seems normal, always something strange is going on. With an underlying tension he draws us into a world behind the known world, the flip side of our reality.

Mauk Westerman Holstijn

Mauk Westerman Holstijn (1997) studied biotechnology and marine ecology at Wageningen University & Research. He previously published stories in Hollands Maandblad. In 2020, he won the Resource literature competition with the story 'Droogte’ (Drought), whose jury was chaired by Louise O. Fresco. Een meedogenloos gehoor is his debut collection of nine short stories. 

Living Isn't Easy

Robocobra Quartet, the post-punk jazz band from Belfast, Northern Ireland, are described as a cross of Fugazi meets Mingus, or a mixture of La Dispute and GoGo Penguin. The four musicians arrive at their unique and distinctive sound by using one drastic rule: no guitars are allowed. That place is reserved for other instruments such as saxophones, samplers, keyboards and a whole array of sound effects swirling around melodic bass lines and pounding drum rhythms that form the core of their compositions.

Add to that a single vocalist who also plays the drums, singing sometimes in sync and at other times completely at odds with the rest of the band. Their debut album, 

, came out in 2017, and they recently followed it up with 

“I think it becomes better after you have practiced more,” mused bandleader and singer-drummer Chris Ryan in 2017, so five years down the road, come and check out their progress in what promises to be a blistering performance at Crossing Border.

Robocobra Quartet

Industry of Magic & Light 

With Scottish writer David Keenan, Crossing Border welcomes perhaps its most esoteric author. Keenan (1971) made his name as an influential writer for music magazine The Wire, championing coverage of experimental artists and bringing them to a wider audience. He coined the term ‘free folk’ in a 2003 issue of 

 and later the term ‘hypnagogic pop’.

Apart from his magazine work, Keenan has written 

, exploring the connections between British music and the occult, as well as a series of novels including the cult classic, 

 – a love letter to the counterculture of the 1960s – was published in August this year.

Keenan began writing about music when he was 16 years old: “I was still living at home in Airdrie when I first started writing. Airdrie is a small town about 21 miles outside of Glasgow, a magical small town actually, populated by eccentrics and weirdos, despite its reputation as being ugly and a rough place to grow up in.”

David Keenan

With Scottish writer David Keenan, Crossing Border welcomes perhaps its most esoteric author. Keenan (1971) made his name as an influential writer for music magazine The Wire, championing coverage of experimental artists and bringing them to a wider audience. He coined the term ‘free folk’ in a 2003 issue of The Wire and later the term ‘hypnagogic pop’.

De gevaren van roken in bed

Considered to be one of the most original and important writers of her generation, Argentinian author Mariana Enriquez (1973) presents her new book 

, in what promises to be a magical evening at Crossing Border.

In this anthology from one of the leading Latin-American authors of the moment, the terrifying intrudes into the mundane as we alternate between realism and the magical. Welcome to Buenos Aires, a city weighed down by homicidal tendencies and morbid desires. Where missing children return from the dead and exhumed bones carry terrible curses. Enriquez tackles themes such as revenge, witchcraft, jealousy, murder and disappearances – and women and girls who can no longer suppress their darkest tendencies.

“Readers get horrified when they read one of my stories, with a child that lives in the streets, for example, but the truth is that they see children like that every day. Many of them, sleeping in doorways, hungry, filthy. But when they read it, they ask how I can go so far? The truth is, I don’t go far at all,” she said in an interview last year.

Mariana Enriquez 

Considered to be one of the most original and important writers of her generation, Argentinian author Mariana Enriquez (1973) presents her new book The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, in what promises to be a magical evening at Crossing Border.

When you see Dutch poet and performer Demi Baltus (1998) on stage, you’ll experience much more than someone just reciting a poem. She fires rhythmic streams of words at the audience, her body gently bobbing to the beat. Baltus writes raw lyrics about abrasive situations, uncomfortable love and human insecurities. She discovered her love for poetry at high school, where she won five poetry competitions. She then studied poetry slam, in which poets compete on stage, their words deployed as weapons to win over an audience or jury.

Baltus recites her poetry by heart, without paper in front of her. “It is not done to recite from paper at slam poetry,” she told an interviewer in 2017. “I never put anything on paper. Sometimes I think of something on the bike, then I think of it in my head until I know it.”

Demi Baltus

When you see Dutch poet and performer Demi Baltus (1998) on stage, you’ll experience much more than someone just reciting a poem. She fires rhythmic streams of words at the audience, her body gently bobbing to the beat. Baltus writes raw lyrics about abrasive situations, uncomfortable love and human insecurities

Geestelijke Gezondheidszorg

IKRAAAN - Dans (Prod by Mick Lemaire)

IKRAAAN is the pseudonym of the Dutch-language singer Icran Mohamed Haji (1998), who began making music aged 15. While the launch of her debut album 

 (Mental Healthcare) was postponed for a year due to the Corona pandemic, its themes are prescient, dealing candidly with social anxieties and depression in lyrics brought to life in her hauntingly powerful vocals.

“I was born in Belgium, but my mother grew up in Somalia where there was a civil war going on,” she has said. “She wasn't really that impressed by corona. But for those with their luxury lives here, it was a drama.”

With her debt album, IKRAAAN hopes to send a message to people sidelined in society. “It is addressed to people who are suffering and to their families, who are suffering with them. Everything else ultimately is a side issue.”

IKRAAAN

IKRAAAN is the pseudonym of the Dutch-language singer Icran Mohamed Haji (1998), who began making music aged 15. While the launch of her debut album Geestelijke Gezondheidszorg (Mental Healthcare) was postponed for a year due to the Corona pandemic, its themes are prescient, dealing candidly with social anxieties and depression in lyrics brought to life in her hauntingly powerful vocals.

The Wellspring

Since 2014, Dutch songwriter and vocalist Damani has been introducing his musical tracks to the public through Mushroom Mosis. HIs project is a mix of pop, jazz and soul. On stage, Damani likes to improvise, taking inspiration from the audience and the environment, making each performance unique.

. It was recorded last year and is inspired by the huge changes in everyone’s life over the past two years.

Mushroom Mosis

Michelle Gurevich - First Six Months of Love

Born in Canada to Russian-Jewish immigrants – a ballerina and an engineer from Leningrad –Michelle Gurevich (formerly known as Chinawoman) grew up listening to her parents’ record collection, an eclectic mix of Soviet music and seventies European pop and rock.

That soundtrack to her childhood had a lasting impact, and her music today is heavily influenced by her Russian heritage. Her oeuvre is described as slowcore rock and lo-fi pop, anchored by her brooding deep vocals.

Her musical career started in 2007 with the self-released album 

. It found its way into the land of her forefathers and was soon heard blaring from the yachts of Russian billionaires and as ringtones of mothers all over Ukraine.

, she is finding new opportunities for rawness and vulnerability in a collection of songs about desire without end. The recurring themes are elation sought and remembered, the art and taste for living, and roads not taken.

“I think it’s quite normal for people to want to encapsulate their flicker of existence,” Gurevich explained in an interview in 2017. “We all feel that our lives are passing us by, and we want to harness and raise up our little moments and say, ‘Hey! We were here! We sat by this lake and we loved each other and it was magnificent!’.”

Michelle Gurevich

Over Tirannie

Nora Krug (1977) is a German-American author and illustrator living in the Bronx. She traced her family’s own history in Nazi-era Germany in her award-winning visual memoir, 

Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home

Her latest work is an illustrated edition of Timothy Snyder’s 

, in which he describes twenty methods to protect democracy against authoritarian governments. Krug breathes new life in Snyder's arguments with fresh colours and powerful images.

“The most horrible part was when I began to illustrate his chapter on paramilitary organisations… That was exactly around the time that in America seemingly out of nothing groups as the Proud Boys began to manifest themselves,” Krug remembers. “I illustrated an existing book, but it was as if I recorded what I myself experienced, of what is happening in America, here and now.”

Nora Krug 

Want to protect your freedom and democratic rights? Want to recognize the beginnings of a totalitarian regime in time? Then you better show up at this evening of Crossing Border with Nora Krug