Stefan Hertmans

Stefan Hertmans (b. 1951, Ghent) is a poet, essayist and novelist. He attracted an international readership with his fiction. War and Turpentine (Oorlog en terpentijn; Pantheon Books, 2016) was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2017 and was one of the New York Times' ten best books of 2016. His most recent novel, The Ascent (De opgang), a disturbing study in Flemish collaboration during the Second World War, was published in 2022, also with Pantheon Books. He has always, however, written poetry, as his many collections testify. His collected poems (1975-2005), Music for the Crossing (Muziek voor de overtocht), were published in 2006. Another book, De val van vrije dagen (The Lure of Idle Days), appeared in 2010, Onder een koperen hemel (Under a Sky of Bronze) came out in 2018. Each of these books was published by De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam. In 2023 he was awarded the Prix Alain Bosquet, the major French publishers' award for the best collection of originally foreign language poetry: 'Sous un ciel d'airain', translated by Philippe Noble.