Article published in:
Transnational Image Building: Linking up Translation Studies, Reception Studies and Imagology
Edited by Paola Gentile, Fruzsina Kovács and Marike van der Watt
[Translation Spaces 10:1] 2021
► pp. 70–93

“My language has an immense potential”

A review of Cees Nooteboom’s national and transnational circulation

| University of Trieste
This article sets out to chart the success of the Dutch novelist, poet and travel writer Cees Nooteboom, who has achieved literary fame in several countries of the world while recognition in his home country lagged behind. To analyse the reasons for the conflicting images attributed to this cosmopolitan author, I will look behind the curtains of the transnational production and reception of his writings, investigating his success in five central or semi-central languages (Heilbron 2010). The study of how this writer has succeeded in transcending the peripheral position of the Dutch language in the world literary system will be carried out by combining the sociology of translation with reception studies and imagological considerations. Nooteboom appears to be a peculiar case of image building: he is internationally represented as a Dutch and a European writer, but his lack of Dutchness appears to have hindered his recognition in the Netherlands.
Keywords: Cees Nooteboom, Dutch literature, transnational field, conflicting images, Dutchness
Published online: 01 June 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/ts.20025.ros
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