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Der erste Roman, der den Kolonialismus bloßstellte – und dabei literarische Genregrenzen sprengte.
Vor einigen Jahren wurde »Max Havelaar« (1860) zum wichtigsten Buch der niederländischen Literatur ernannt. Was »Onkel Toms Hütte« für den Kampf gegen die Sklaverei war, war Multatulis Meisterwerk für die Dekolonialisierung.
Erstmals prangerte eine literarische Stimme die Ausbeutung der einheimischen Bevölkerung in den Kolonien – speziell auf Java – offen an. Auf neuartige Weise verbindet der Autor autobiografische Elemente, politische Anklage und literarische Fiktion, wenn er die Ungerechtigkeiten des ausbeuterischen Systems mit moralischer Empörung, satirischem Witz und erzählerischer Raffinesse schildert. Eine Tour de force der Literatur!
Max Havelaar
oder die Kaffeeversteigerungen
der Niederländischen Handels-Gesellschaft
Autor: Multatuli
Übersetzerin: Ira Wilhelm
Verlag Die Andere Bibliothek
Limitierte, nummerierte Originalausgabe
Sprache Deutsch
ISBN 978-3-8477-0487-4
Format: Originalausgabe
Anzahl Seiten 408
Bandnummer 495 (2026)
Gestalter:in: Kosmos Design
Originalausgabe noch nicht lieferbar
Erscheint Dezember 2026
€ 48,00
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In memoriam Lieke Marsman (1990-2026)
Op 3 juni 2026 is dichter, filosoof en romancier Lieke Marsman op 35-jarige leeftijd overleden. Zij leed aan een zeldzame vorm van kanker.
Lieke Marsman (’s-Hertogenbosch 1990 – Parijs 2026) debuteerde in 2010 met de dichtbundel ‘Wat ik mijzelf graag voorhoud.’ Daarvoor won ze meteen de C. Buddingh’-prijs, de Lucy B. en C.W. van der Hoogtprijs en de Liegend Konijn Debuutprijs. Drie jaar later verscheen ‘De eerste letter’.
In 2017 publiceerde Lieke Marsman haar roman ‘Het tegenovergestelde van een mens’, door NRC uitgeroepen als een van de beste boeken van deze eeuw. Hierin vervlecht ze proza met poëzie en essayistiek om een groot en actueel thema van deze tijd te kunnen belichten: klimaatverandering. In 2017 verscheen eveneens ‘Man met hoed’, een bundel verzamelde gedichten, waarin ook vertalingen van haar hand zijn opgenomen. In ‘De volgende scan duurt vijf minuten’ (2018) onderzoekt Lieke Marsman in tien gedichten en een essay hoe een ziek lichaam zich verhoudt tot een zieke wereld. Het is een vurig pleidooi dat oproept om je heen te kijken en je maatschappelijke verantwoordelijkheid te nemen in een gepolariseerde samenleving.
Op de dag van haar benoeming tot Dichter des Vaderlands verscheen ‘In mijn mand’ (2021), waarin Lieke Marsman de grootste thema’s behandelt die het menselijke bestaan kenmerken: de waarde van het leven en de plek die de dood daarin inneemt. Marsman bekleedde de positie van Dichter des Vaderlands tot 2023. Begin 2023 verscheen haar bundel ‘Ter gelegenheid van poëzie’, een ode aan de poëzie en het belang van het nauwkeurig gebruiken van de taal, gericht en oprecht. In het publieke debat bracht ze dit in de praktijk. Als essayist in de krant en kernachtig op sociale media was Lieke Marsman een zeer maatschappelijk betrokken commentator. Met humor en scherpte wist ze altijd tot de kern van complexe vraagstukken door te dringen.
In 2025 werd ‘Op een andere planeet kunnen ze me redden’ gepubliceerd. Dit boek is een filosofische trip tot in de diepten van de menselijke geest, afgewisseld met dagboekfragmenten die beschrijven hoe de dood Marsman op de hielen zit. Ook werd haar de Constantijn Huygens-prijs toegekend voor haar gehele oeuvre.
Op 9 juni 2026 verscheen Marsmans laatste boek, ‘De dichter en de duivel.’
Een dichter koopt een huis en komt tot de ontdekking dat haar berging toegang biedt tot een ondergrondse wereld waar mensen in ruil voor kleine stukjes ziel hun zonden afkopen. Terwijl ze steeds verder afdaalt, ontmoet ze influencers, politici, opiniemakers en columnisten. Gelukkig is er zo nu en dan een dichter die soelaas biedt, maar uiteindelijk mondt de reis uit in het onvermijdelijke: ze komt oog in oog met de duivel te staan.
Lieke Marsman
De Dichter en De Duivel
Hardcover
Nederlands
9 juni 2026
120 pagina’s
Uitgeverij Pluim
EAN 9789493525146
€ 24,99
Is het mijn sterfdag?
De lucht is stil, als lucht
op een kalender
Is het mijn sterfdag?
Vergeet klokken die luiden
De lucht is stil, als lucht
Is het mijn sterfdag?
Vergeet engelen en psalmen
Ik wil het vanille van een oud boek
Ik wil een koud flesje bier
en ik wil jou, nog één keer
Vergeet de vogels die zingen
Ik wil mijn hond horen drinken
Uit: ’In mijn mand’ (Uitgeverij Pluim, 2021)
• Foto: Wikipedia/Coen Peppelenbos 2014
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Leonard Nolens was een Vlaams dichter, vertaler en dagboekschrijver. Hij was een van de belangrijkste dichters uit het Nederlandse taalgebied. Nolens ontving meerdere literatuurprijzen, waaronder in 1997 de Constantijn Huygensprijs en in 2012 de prestigieuse Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren. Meer dan eens werd hij genoemd als mogelijke kandidaat voor de Nobelprijs voor Literatuur. Hij overleed op 26 december 2025 op 78-jarige leeftijd.
Foto Herman Schartman: De Belgische dichter Leonard Nolens bij de onthulling van het muurgedicht “Laat” in Den Haag NL, Oktober 2015.
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Hans van Manen (1932 – 2025) was een Nederlands balletdanser, choreograaf en fotograaf. Hij overleed op 17 december op 93-jarige leeftijd in zijn woonplaats Amsterdam. Van Manen maakte meer dan 150 choreografieën die door meer dan 90 dansgezelschappen, over de hele wereld, zijn opgevoerd.
Foto: Roland Gerrits 1986
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Dying
I.
Leave me; oh! leave me,
Lest I find this low earth sweeter than the skies.
Leave me lest I deem Faith’s white bosom bared to the betraying arms of Death.
Hush your fond voice, lest it shut out the angel trumpet-call!
See my o’erwearied feet bleed for rest.
Loose the clinging and the clasping of my clammy fingers.
Your soft hand of Love may press back the dark, awful shadows of Death, but the soul faints in the strife and struggles of nights that have no days.
I am so weary with this climbing up the smooth steep sides of the grave wall.
My dimmed eyes can no longer strain up through the darkness to the temples and palaces that you have built for me upon Life’s summit.
God is folding up the white tent of my youth.
My name is enrolled for the pallid army of the dead.
II
It is too late, too late!
You may not kiss back my breath to the sunshine.
How can these trembling hands of dust reach up to bend the untempered iron of Destiny down to my woman-forehead?
Where is the wedge to split its knotty way between the Past and the Future?
The soaring bird that would sing its life out to the stars, may not leave its own atmosphere;
For, in the long dead reaches of blank space in the Beyond, its free wings fall back to earth baffled.
Once gathering all my sorrows up to one purpose—rebel-like—I dared step out into Light, when, lo! Death tied my unwilling feet, and with hands of ice, bandaged my burning lips, and set up, between my eyes and the Future, the great Infinite of Eternity, full in the blazing sun of my Hope!
From the red round life of Love I have gone down to the naked house of Fear.
Drowned in a storm of tears.
My wild wings of thought drenched from beauty to the color of the ground.
Going out at the hueless gates of day.
Dying, dying.
III.
Oh! is there no strength in sorrow, or in prayers?
Is there no power in the untried wings of the soul, to smite the brazen portals of the sun?
Must the black-sandaled foot of Night tramp out the one star that throbs through the darkness of my waning life?
May not the strong arm of “I will,” bring some beam to lead me into my sweet Hope again?
Alas, too late! too late!
The power of these blood-dripping cerements sweeps back the audacious thought to emptiness.
Hungry Death will not heed the poor bird that has tangled its bright wing through my deep-heart pulses.
Moaning and living.
Dying and loving.
IV.
See the poor wounded snake; how burdened to the ground;
How it lengthens limberly along the dust.
Now palpitates into bright rings only to unwind, and reach its bleeding head up the steep high walls around us.
Now, alas! falling heavily back into itself, quivering with unuttered pain;
Choking with its own blood it dies in the dust.
So we are crippled ever;
Reaching and falling,
Silent and dying.
V.
Gold and gleaming jewel shatter off their glory well in the robes of royalty, but when we strain against the whelming waves, the water gurgling down our drowning throats, we shred them off, and hug the wet, cold rocks lovingly.
Then old death goes moaning back from the steady footing of Life baffled.
Ah! is it too late for me to be wise.
Will my feeble hands fail me in the moveless steppings back to the world?
Oh! if youth were only back!
Oh! if the years would only empty back their ruined days into the lap of the Present!
Oh! if yesterday would only unravel the light it wove into the purple of the Past!
Ah! then might I be vigilant!
Then might the battle be mine!
Nor should my sluggish blood drip down the rocks till the noon-tide sun should draw it up mistily in smoke.
Then should the heaviness of soul have dropped as trees do their weight of rainy leaves.
Nor should the sweet leash of Love have slipped from my hungry life, and left me pining, dying for his strength.
I should have wrapt up my breathing in the naked bosom of Nature, and she would have kissed me back to sweetest comfort, and I would have drawn up from her heart draughts of crusted nectar and promises of eternal joys.
Oh! it is not the glittering garniture of God’s things that come quivering into the senses, that makes our lives look white through the windings of the wilderness.
It is the soul’s outflow of purple light that clashes up a music with the golden blood of strong hearts.
Souls with God’s breath upon them,
Hearts with Love’s light upon them.
VI.
If my weak puny hand could reach up and rend the sun
from his throne to-day, then were the same but a little thing for me to do.
It is the Far Off, the great Unattainable, that feeds the passion we feel for a star.
Looking up so high, worshipping so silently, we tramp out the hearts of flowers that lift their bright heads for us and die alone.
If only the black, steep grave gaped between us, I feel that I could over-sweep all its gulfs.
I believe that Love may unfold its white wings even in the red bosom of Hell.
I know that its truth can measure the distance to Heaven with one thought.
Then be content to let me go, for these pale hands shall reach up from the grave, and still draw the living waters of Love’s well.
That is better, surer than climbing with bruised feet and bleeding hands to plead with the world for what is mine own.
Then straighten out the crumpled length of my hair, and loose all the flowers one by one.
God is not unjust.
VII.
Oh! in the great strength of thy unhooded soul, pray for my weakness.
Let me go! See the pale and solemn army of the night is on the march.
Do not let my shivering soul go wailing up for a human love to the throne of the Eternal.
Have we not watched the large setting sun drive a
column of light through the horizon down into the darkness?
So within the grave’s night, O my beloved! shall my love burn on to eternity.
O Death! Death! loose out thy cold, stiff fingers from my quivering heart!
Let the warm blood rush back to gasp up but one more word!
O Love! thou art stronger, mightier than all!
O Death! thou hast but wedded me to Life!
Life is Love, and Love is Eternity.
Adah Isaacs Menken
(1835 – 1868)
Dying
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Aspiration
Poor, impious Soul! that fixes its high hopes
In the dim distance, on a throne of clouds,
And from the morning’s mist would make the ropes
To draw it up amid acclaim of crowds—
Beware! That soaring path is lined with shrouds;
And he who braves it, though of sturdy breath,
May meet, half way, the avalanche and death!
O poor young Soul!—whose year-devouring glance
Fixes in ecstasy upon a star,
Whose feverish brilliance looks a part of earth,
Yet quivers where the feet of angels are,
And seems the future crown in realms afar—
Beware! A spark thou art, and dost but see
Thine own reflection in Eternity!
Adah Isaacs Menken
(1835 – 1868)
Aspiration
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A Memory
I see her yet, that dark-eyed one,
Whose bounding heart God folded up
In His, as shuts when day is done,
Upon the elf the blossom’s cup.
On many an hour like this we met,
And as my lips did fondly greet her,
I blessed her as love’s amulet:
Earth hath no treasure, dearer, sweeter.
The stars that look upon the hill,
And beckon from their homes at night,
Are soft and beautiful, yet still
Not equal to her eyes of light.
They have the liquid glow of earth,
The sweetness of a summer even,
As if some Angel at their birth
Had dipped them in the hues of Heaven.
They may not seem to others sweet,
Nor radiant with the beams above,
When first their soft, sad glances meet
The eyes of those not born for love;
Yet when on me their tender beams
Are turned, beneath love’s wide control,
Each soft, sad orb of beauty seems
To look through mine into my soul.
I see her now that dark-eyed one,
Whose bounding heart God folded up
In His, as shuts when day is done,
Upon the elf the blossom’s cup.
Too late we met, the burning brain,
The aching heart alone can tell,
How filled our souls of death and pain
When came the last, sad word, Farewell!
Adah Isaacs Menken
(1835 – 1868)
A Memory
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Karazah To Karl
Come back to me! my life is young,
My soul is scarcely on her way,
And all the starry songs she’s sung,
Are prelude to a grander lay.
Come back to me!
Let this song-born soul receive thee,
Glowing its fondest truth to prove;
Why so early did’st thou leave me,
Are our heaven-grand life of love?
Come back to me!
My burning lips shall set their seal
On our betrothal bond to-night,
While whispering murmurs will reveal
How souls can love in God’s own light.
Come back to me!
Come back to me! The stars will be
Silent witnesses of our bliss,
And all the past shall seem to thee
But a sweet dream to herald this!
Come back to me!
Adah Isaacs Menken
(1835 – 1868)
Karazah To Karl
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Answer Me
I
In from the night.
The storm is lifting his black arms up to the sky.
Friend of my heart, who so gently marks out the lifetrack for me, draw near to-night;
Forget the wailing of the low-voiced wind:
Shut out the moanings of the freezing, and the starving, and the dying, and bend your head low to me:
Clasp my cold, cold hands in yours;
Think of me tenderly and lovingly:
Look down into my eyes the while I question you, and if you love me, answer me—
Oh, answer me!
II
Is there not a gleam of Peace on all this tiresome earth?
Does not one oasis cheer all this desert-world?
When will all this toil and pain bring me the blessing?
Must I ever plead for help to do the work before me set?
Must I ever stumble and faint by the dark wayside?
Oh the dark, lonely wayside, with its dim-sheeted ghosts peering up through their shallow graves!
Must I ever tremble and pale at the great Beyond?
Must I find Rest only in your bosom, as now I do?
Answer me—
Oh, answer me!
III
Speak to me tenderly.
Think of me lovingly.
Let your soft hands smooth back my hair.
Take my cold, tear-stained face up to yours.
Let my lonely life creep into your warm bosom, knowing no other rest but this.
Let me question you, while sweet Faith and Trust are folding their white robes around me.
Thus am I purified, even to your love, that came like John the Baptist in the Wilderness of Sin.
You read the starry heavens, and lead me forth.
But tell me if, in this world’s Judea, there comes never quiet when once the heart awakes?
Why must it ever hush Love back?
Must it only labor, strive, and ache?
Has it no reward but this?
Has it no inheritance but to bear—and break?
Answer me—
Oh, answer me!
IV
The Storm struggles with the Darkness.
Folded away in your arms, how little do I heed their battle!
The trees clash in vain their naked swords against the door.
I go not forth while the low murmur of your voice is drifting all else back to silence.
The darkness presses his black forehead close to the window pane, and beckons me without.
Love holds a lamp in this little room that hath power to blot back Fear.
But will the lamp ever starve for oil?
Will its blood-red flame ever grow faint and blue?
Will it uprear itself to a slender line of light?
Will it grow pallid and motionless?
Will it sink rayless to everlasting death?
Answer me—
Oh, answer me!
V
Look at these tear-drops.
See how they quiver and die on your open hands.
Fold these white garments close to my breast, while I question you.
Would you have me think that from the warm shelter of your heart I must go to the grave?
And when I am lying in my silent shroud, will you love me?
When I am buried down in the cold, wet earth, will you grieve that you did not save me?
Will your tears reach my pale face through all the withered leaves that will heap themselves upon my grave?
Will you repent that you loosened your arms to let me fall so deep, and so far out of sight?
Will you come and tell me so, when the coffin has shut out the storm?
Answer me—
Oh, answer me!
Adah Isaacs Menken
(1835 – 1868)
Answer Me
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Dreams of Beauty
Visions of Beauty, of Light, and of Love,
Born in the soul of a Dream,
Lost, like the phantom-bird under the dove,
When she flies over a stream—
Come ye through portals where angel wings droop,
Moved by the heaven of sleep?
Or, are ye mockeries, crazing a soul,
Doomed with its waking to weep?
I could believe ye were shadows of earth,
Echoes of hopes that are vain,
But for the music ye bring to my heart,
Waking its sunshine again.
And ye are fleeting. All vainly I strive
Beauties like thine to portray;
Forth from my pencil the bright picture starts,
And—ye have faded away.
Like to a bird that soars up from the spray,
When we would fetter its wing;
Like to the song that spurns Memory’s grasp
When the voice yearneth to sing;
Like the cloud-glory that sunset lights up,
When the storm bursts from its height;
Like the sheet-silver that rolls on the sea,
When it is touched by the night—
Bright, evanescent, ye come and are gone,
Visions of mystical birth;
Art that could paint you was never vouchsafed
Unto the children of earth.
Yet in my soul there’s a longing to tell
All you have seemed unto me,
That unto others a glimpse of the skies
You in their sorrow might be.
Vain is the wish. Better hope to describe
All that the spirit desires,
When through a cloud of vague fancies and schemes
Flash the Promethean fires.
Let me then think of ye, Visions of Light,
Not as the tissue of dreams.
But as realities destined to be
Bright in Futurity’s beams.
Ideas formed by a standard of earth
Sink at Reality’s shrine
Into the human and weak like ourselves,
Losing the essence divine;
But the fair pictures that fall from above
On the heart’s mirror sublime
Carry a signature written in tints,
Bright with the future of time,
And the heart, catching them, yieldeth a spark
Under each stroke of the rod—
Sparks that fly upward and light the New Life,
Burning an incense to God!
Adah Isaacs Menken
(1835 – 1868)
Dreams of Beauty
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Modern Love: XXIX
Am I failing? For no longer can I cast
A glory round about this head of gold.
Glory she wears, but springing from the mould;
Not like the consecration of the Past!
Is my soul beggared? Something more than earth
I cry for still: I cannot be at peace
In having Love upon a mortal lease.
I cannot take the woman at her worth!
Where is the ancient wealth wherewith I clothed
Our human nakedness, and could endow
With spiritual splendour a white brow
That else had grinned at me the fact I loathed?
A kiss is but a kiss now! and no wave
Of a great flood that whirls me to the sea.
But, as you will! we’ll sit contentedly,
And eat our pot of honey on the grave.
George Meredith
(1828-1909)
Modern Love: XXIX
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Si tu veux nous nous aimerons
Si tu veux nous nous aimerons
Avec tes lèvres sans le dire
Cette rose ne l’interromps
Qu’à verser un silence pire
Jamais de chants ne lancent prompts
Le scintillement du sourire
Si tu veux nous nous aimerons
Avec tes lèvres sans le dire
Muet muet entre les ronds
Sylphe dans la pourpre d’empire
Un baiser flambant se déchire
Jusqu’aux pointes des ailerons
Si tu veux nous nous aimerons.
Stéphane Mallarmé
(1842 – 1898)
Si tu veux nous nous aimerons
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