Oscar
van den Boogaard

Oscar van den Boogaard was born in Harderwijk, Holland, in 1964 and grew up in Surinam and Holland. He studied law and French literature in Montpellier, Amsterdam and Brussels. After a brief period working as a lawyer in an international office, he began writing and has worked as a freelance author since then. This was a characteristic decision for van den Boogaard, for whom nothing is more significant than “living life”, so that in the end “the accounts of life, with reality on the left and imagination on the right,” have been balanced. As the founder of the Mot & van den Boogaard gallery for contemporary art in Brussels, he has close contacts with the international art world. Since the publication of his debut novel “Dentz” (1990), Oscar van den Boogaard has been one of the most important young authors in the Netherlands. Van den Boogaard writes powerfully and sensitively, aiming to convince people that they should not neglect their true interests due to unrecognised pressures. Suffering that stems from a routine leaving no space to realise feelings and longings is a central issue for the protagonist of his novel “De heerlijkheid van Julia” (Julia’s Glory, 1997), for which he received two top awards – the Dutch Libris-Literatuurprijs and the Belgian De gouden Uil. The novel “Liefdesdood” (Love’s Death, 2001) is also about complicated family relations, fantasies of escape and alienation, and also received De gouden Uil. “Liefdesdood” is characterised by a reduced, almost sober language, which nonetheless appears both lyrical and full of feeling. The critic Hans Warren referred to it as “a book that continually adopts a different tone”.

Recently, Oscar van den Boogaard has been fascinated by the question of relationships and identity, by the role of a counterpart as the reflection of oneself. “We need someone in order to be someone ourselves. But how can I be, if the other does not have the abilities, the experience and the vocabulary to recognise me?”