#flemish writer

[huariqueje]

Portrait  of Stijn Streuvels    -      Modest Huys, 1915.

Belgian, 1874-1932

oil on canvas, 210 x 146 cm.

oil on canvas

[thissurroundingall]

Koen Sels

Writer, consciously getting lost in city and nature

Nederlandstalige versie

Date interview: 1 May 2016 Reading estimate: 11 minutes 20 seconds

Koen Sels (°1982, Turnhout) made his debut in 2015 with a novel called Generator. The book echoes Koen’s personality; with the protagonist impersonating the author’s own life for the greater part of it. We had great interest in the novel, and were curious about Koen’s vision on life and how he connects the different aspects of it.

The author had the unique request to tell his story by taking us for a walk through Berchem. He often follows the same route; making his way towards the city’s periphery in a centrifugal manner so to speak. Koen is interested in nature in general, but even more so in desolate places and isolated surroundings in parks, whether or not landscaped, which already captivated us while reading Generator. During his long walks, a withdrawal towards the unconscious often takes place.

Apart from a few phrases during the interview, we couldn’t determine that Koen was born and raised in Turnhout. Nevertheless, his origins were important for him to write Generator. Koen is currently living in Berchem (Antwerp). Aside from being a writer, Koen is an editorial secretary for the literary journal nY as well. He also produces the texts for most of the charcoal drawings by artist Rinus Van de Velde. Before we go out for a walk together, we meet Koen in his study.

Order 'Generator’ here  Het Balanseer nY

Is this the place where you always work?

Not specifically. I often feel stuck when I’m in the office for too long. The idea of being obliged to work here is oppressive. Work ethics have a reversed effect on me, although I force myself to work more disciplined sometimes. I am a morning person, and I can focus better before I connect to the internet and read my e-mails. The fact that I’m becoming a father soon, makes me want to work more structured, or have something finished before our baby is born.

I have the feeling that I work harder when I’m outside, observing my surroundings while taking a walk, than when I’m inside. But that doesn’t mean the actual writing and editing process don’t take place in this room. Sometimes I work in Rinus’ atelier, where there’s a lot of movement and rumor in the background.

What characterizes your home? Do we find elements that refer to your personality in here?

My girlfriend Veronik decorated our house for the greater part. There are some things I wouldn’t have chosen myself, but to be honest; appearance isn’t that important to me. I’m not a materialistic person, although certain objects are of great sentimental value to me and I hold on to them closely. Here, for example, you can find a drawing someone made for me on a pizza box, a painting Veronik gave me, a photo of my little nephew, a drawing the daughter of a good friend of mine made… My guitars are in this room too.

The things I value the most, are books. I love big encyclopedic books that have the capability of creating some sort of space in one’s mind. My library was compiled involuntarily, I find it to be a pleasant mess.

I can see that there are some issues of the magazine nY in your bookcase. Can you tell us what your job at nY looks like exactly?

I am an editorial secretary for nY. On the one hand, I take the practical arrangement of the magazine to heart, such as subscribers’ administration, organizing meetings, and so on. On the other hand, I do the final editing on the page proofs of the magazine; I check them one last time and make sure they get printed in time.

Apart from your personal work and that for nY, you also write for Rinus Van de Velde. How would you describe your partnership with that artist?

Rinus and I are good friends, our cooperation grew very organically. Our personalities are totally different, but we complement each other well. Actually, he creates the images first and I write a narrative afterwards, trying to add depth to the image if you will. In fact, this is mostly executive work.

Does this mean there are mostly differences between your personal texts and those you write for Rinus?

Rinus is more fond of anecdotic and narrative texts than I am. Nevertheless, there are inevitably some personal tics or interests of mine that slip into the texts. The work I do for Rinus is good practice: for example, I have to write according to his rhythm as an artist, which is quite fast. I also have to take certain restrictions into account; for instance, the small space the text is allowed to take up or the idea Rinus wants to evoke with his image.

I find the combination of the different ways of writing very fascinating: that way, I can learn to master more registers. Writing for Rinus certainly is a big help.

Where do you draw inspiration from for your own texts? Are there certain writers who have an influence on you?

I have the feeling that I write out of a tone or rhythm rather than concentrating on a subject. I’m influenced by the thought that a story always makes something take form, and that one may certainly exhibit how the story in a text comes into being. There are a lot of “postmodern” or “metafictional” American authors I’ve read, such as Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo and David Foster Wallace. That kind of literature is characterized by a heightened consciousness. It’s a tradition I’ve always felt attracted to. You can certainly recognize this in Generator, as well as an attempt to break with it, and to write about what occupies my mind unconsciously. Aside from that, there are also a lot of visual artists who had an influence on me.

In what way did you incorporate the element of “consciousness”, in combination with your love for tone and rhythm, in your book Generator?

Without wanting to sound all too conceptual, it’s a fact that I feel like I started from something formal. I needed to adopt a style that enabled me to talk about as much elements as possible in the text. For the most part, those were sentimental and in a way “stupid” thoughts; anything that felt impossible to express out of the blue.

We notice that thoughts and feelings are important to you. Could you describe the feeling that forms the base of your writings?

In Generator I wanted to talk about physical experiences. I incorporated long passages describing what the main character encountered. There’s always a flexibility in what one observes. All components intertwine constantly; your fantasy and the way you perceive things as well. One’s never present somewhere in an objective manner; your perceptions are always distorted by personal and structural fantasies, but also by ideas about “normality”. To me, this was very important: that I could write about what we think is normal in an interesting way. Partly to do away with the idea of normality.

Which elements of life intrigue you, except from concepts like “normality”, “fantasy”, and “flexibility in perception”? What are the themes you often return to?

In general, I’d like to be democratic in this and not choose one element specifically. Obviously, there are experiences I carry with me. For example, I have a fascination for awkwardness, for moments during which people lose their identity or when they’re very conscious about it. This becomes predominant during puberty, which is the time in one’s life when there’s a weird dynamic between showing that you very well know who you are, and at the same time watching other people, wanting to know what they think about you. In no way do I want to come off as considering myself superior when talking about this. It’s interesting how identity originates as something social. In general, the “self” and identity are interesting concepts, I think. The same goes for personal issues. You could call this fascination of mine existentialist.

Generator is mostly about your own identity. The novel describes your own course of life up until now. How much does the life of the protagonist differ from your own life?

I didn’t want to create a too much distance between the narrator and the protagonist. The one knows as much or as little about life as the other. The genre of fiction allows a writer to carry a different kind of responsibility towards reality: I could do whatever I wanted to. That’s why there are some fundamental differences compared to my own life. The main character was an art student, which was some kind of dream of mine, whereas I studied Germanic languages. Apart from that, I incorporated a lot of stories about my friends in the book.

What was your purpose of writing Generator? What kind of mood do you want to evoke?

I hope to give the readers of Generator some room to be themselves. Apart from that, I want the idea of the conscious to come out as some kind of space, a space in which you can experience pleasure from your thoughts – how ambiguous that pleasure may be sometimes. On a rather arbitrary moment, the text switches from a “he”-perspective to an “I”-perspective. I expect this to have the same effect on the reader as it did on me as the writer: at a certain moment, I had the guts to say “I”, and I was very relieved about that. The change in perspective is also technically motivated.

The book is written in a moment of crisis, which is clearly felt in the text. For me, it was interesting to consider crisis not only in a subjective way, because I’m convinced it’s socially defined. It doesn’t have to be considered as a hyper-personal symptom, because it’s something that can be avoided very difficultly in our society. People don’t have a monolithic self, I think. It’s my perception that they consist of multiple voices, and I believe this has to do with the world I grew up in. The connection one has with their job, friendships and relationships is divided too. That division isn’t one sole person’s problem. In Generator, I wanted to communicate about important aspects of life, in dialogue with a reader who doesn’t know me.

It wasn’t only strangers that read your book. How was Generator received by your family?

Amazingly enough, they were very enthusiastic. My father told me to write about whatever I wanted. But there is some kind of distance as well, of course. In a reversed way, I let myself be guided by the conventions of the coming of age novel. Apart from the protagonist’s desire to do dig into his past, I followed the traditional scheme of a person who grows up and moves to a big city. In a way, you can feel there’s a double relationship, a love-hate connection of the main character with his roots. It’s quite possible that I might have offended some people, but it was in keeping with the book that the protagonist had to break with his background.

You teamed up with 'het balanseer' for the publication of Generator, a rather small Flemish publishing house. Why did you choose them?

Het balanseer had been following me ever since I published the first chapter of Generator in nY. There was an instant connection between us and I felt they really understood me. The editorial process was very pleasant and precise. My publisher Kris and I meet just for the fun of it, by the way.

Are you working on a second book and, if so, how is it coming along?

At this stage, it’s way too early to tell something about it, but indeed, I started writing on a new book. For now, it seems like it will be a redemption story about adult life. I want to leave puberty behind me, although it will never be entirely, of course.

The writing itself comes along quite nicely at intervals. But I do prefer dreaming to writing from time to time, or spending my time outside. In order to write, I need to see a lot of things; I need to observe. I think it’s important for me to open up to whatever comes along by chance. But I do look at things differently when I have writing on my mind.

How do you see the future? What are the dreams you want to pursue?

The birth of our first child is something I’m looking forward to a lot. It makes me want to have more financial stability too. And someday, I would like to write a really long book, a historical novel. I think.

Interview & text: Britt Sterkens English revision: Jelle Laurijssen Photography: Karlijne Geudens