Romanian-born
\nNetherlander writer Nausicaa Marbe participated in several reading and discussion
\nsessions in Bucharest and Brasov, as part of the Sofia Nadeje Days, a project carried in Romania in November 2019. Nausicaa Marbe was born in Bucharest. She is
\nthe daughter of the famous composer Myriam Marbe. Nausicaa graduated from the
\nGerman High-school in Bucharest . She has been living in the Netherlands since
\n1982, where she read Politology and Philosophy. Nausicaa Marbe’s debut novel, Mandraga,
\nwas published in 1999. It is a story about migration, with lots of
\nautobiographical hints. Mandraga scooped the Charlotte Kohler prizes for debut
\nand was also translated into German. Nausicaa Marbe’s novel Smeergeld, Bribe,
\nwas published in 2014. It was critically acclaimed and sold to a German
\npublisher. In 2016 Smeergeld, Bribe was awarded the Belgian prize De Diamanten
\nKogel. Critics praised the talented writer for her ability to build a complex morality
\nnovel focusing on today’s Netherlands. In a style peppered with sarcasm,
\nNausica Marbe wrote a novel where personal dilemmas blend into the political
\nconundrum of an entire generation in Western Europe. It is a heart-throbbing
\nstory, a story of love and corruption in the elite circles of Haarlem, the city
\nthe author has been living in, with her family.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In Bucharest and
\nBrasov, Nausicaa Marbe interacted with members of the audience, also reading
\nfragments from the novel Smeergeld, Bribe. <\/p>\n
Nausicaa Marbe:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
As
\nyou can see, there is a mushroom on the cover and I very much liked the mushroom
\nto be printed on the front cover, since my novel is a book about moldy relationships,
\nabout problems in society, about things we usually cannot see, about places
\nwhere it is dark and ugly, and about the fact that we avoid taking a look in
\nthat direction. I may also speak about the novel as about a sad morality
\ncomedy. The main character is a man. He is an architect of the city of Haarlem,
\nwho lost his job during the financial crisis. The man is also involved in local
\npolitics so in that capacity he discovered some acts of corruption. A
\ncorruption that exists even in the Netherlands. Having written a great part of
\nthe book I had a talk with the architect of the city of Haarlem. I was in his
\noffice because I wanted to see him at work, I wanted to enter the atmosphere as
\nI didn’t know very much about the topic. I spoke to the architect about my
\nnovel, but two or three months later, when the novel had already been
\npublished, we met again and he told me he got scared. And the reason why he got
\nscared was my novel, the story I had invented, a story about fraud, bribery and
\na conflict of interests which did exist in the city’s local politics at that
\ntime and which had not as yet been discovered. And my architect tried to
\ncontact the press and expose all the underhand implications of the story. The
\nimpression he had after out conversation was that I was a spy, purposefully
\nsent by the politicians who committed part of the blatant wrongdoings. To cut a
\nlong story short, I was very interested in developing that topic, corruption in
\nthe Netherlands, that is. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
It is not very
\noften that a Netherlander writer offers such an interesting and carefully
\nmulti-layered book, a book that does have something to say about our society.
\nAnd the writer does that in a lavish, delicious and subtly malicious style.
\nThis is what the Trouw publication wrote in 2014, when Nausicaa Marbe’s novel,
\nSmeergeld, Bribe, was brought out. <\/p>\n
Nausicaa Marbe:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
What
\nI was mainly interested in was how to write about people who experience that
\nmoment when they suffer many losses. And when, being tempted by all things
\nmaterial, they cannot stick to their landmarks any longer. As I was saying,
\nwhen I wrote the book, Holland was hit by the crisis, very many people lost
\ntheir jobs, their homes, their safety. And the newspapers I was reading back
\nthen published accusations of corruption on a daily basis. And there were
\nconflicts of interest, there was nepotism, there was so much injustice. And all
\nthat hurt, since I realized that if we closed our eyes and refrained from doing
\nanything at all about that, democracy itself was eroded away. It is from the
\napparently trifling matters that everything can be ruined; we do not care about
\nthis or that act of bribe-giving, we do not care if a mayor illegally bought
\nhimself many plots of land, and one day we won’t even care about the much more
\nserious things, to that end. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Nausicaa Marbe worked
\nas a journalist for various TV stations. She was also a columnist for the most
\nhighly appreciated and most widely-read newspapers in the Netherlands. With
\nVolkskrant she signed the leading article until the summer of 2013, when she began
\nher collaboration with De Telegraaf. Nausicaa Marbe is one of the most highly
\nappreciated columnists in the Netherlands. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nausicaa Marbe, guest writer at the Sofia Nadejde literary awards Gala<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":136020,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44685],"tags":[45014,45013,45012],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-162697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-of-culture","tag-de-telegraaf","tag-nausicaa-marbe","tag-sofia-nadejde-literary-awards"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n