David van Reybrouck

David Grégoire Van Reybrouck born 11 September 1971 in Bruges is a Belgian cultural historian archaeologist and author He writes historical fiction literary nonfiction novels poetry plays and academic texts He has received several Dutch literary prizes including AKO Literature Prize 2010 and Libris History Prize Van Reybrouck was born into a family of florists bookbinders and artists His father a farmers son spent five years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a railway engineer immediately after independence He holds a doctorate from Leiden University Van Reybroucks first book De Plaag in English The Plague was a cross between a travelogue and a literary whodunnit set in postapartheid South Africa It received several awards including the prize for the best Flemish debut in 2002 and a shortlist nomination for the Gouden Uil one of the leading literary prizes in the Low Countries It was translated into Afrikaans French and Hungarian A longtime oped writer for the Flemish national newspaper De Morgen Van Reybrouck has coedited a volume on the federal future of Belgium What Belgium Stands For a Scenario 2007 and a thoughtprovoking pamphlet Pleidooi voor populisme A Plea for Populism 2008 which was met with controversy The latter won the Netherlands most distinguished essay prize His book Congo Een geschiedenis in English Congo The Epic History of a People was published in 2010 Over the years Van Reybrouck has travelled extensively throughout Africa The book is as much the result of his ten journeys through the Democratic Republic of the Congo as of the months spent in libraries and archives He has interviewed hundreds of individuals with a particular predilection for socalled ordinary people precisely because their lives and choices are so often extraordinary The book portrays slavery and colonialism resistance and survival It includes archival material interviews and personal observations Congo Een geschiedenis has been translated into English French German Italian Norwegian Polish Swedish Danish and Finnish Van Reybrouck has also been actively involved in organising literary workshops for Congolese playwrights in Kinshasa and Goma In 2020 he published Revolusi which applies to Indonesia the method he used in Congo a combination of interviews with survivors of the events leading up to independence with historical interpretation In his book Against Elections The Case for Democracy he advocates for a deliberative democracy based on sortition Source Article David Van Reybrouck from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30