The Golden Owl is the Belgian award for the best book originally written in the Dutch language. There are two categories: children’s books and the rest. At first, another distinction was made between novels and nonfiction, but apparently there was not enough nonfiction to choose from.
The event is televised live, something unthinkable in the U.S. and other countries. But I’m not sure if the broadcast makes it more valuable. The laws of television are applied to the event. As is well known, these laws are obnoxious: applaud on command, keep the interviews extremely short, and never be too serious. Irony is entertainment.
In 2002, I won the Golden Owl for my book In Praise of Mankind (nonfiction.) With an older woman whom I had met two years before in Manhattan, I traveled to Brussels for the ceremony.
My friend seemed to enjoy the event—dinner, the presentation of the nominees, the chairman of the jury who declares, in an attempt to come as close to the Oscars as possible, “and the winner is…”—more than I did. She gave interviews, made declarations on my behalf and waved her shawl whenever she spotted a photographer. Everything that I detested about the event she seemed to enjoy genuinely.
This friend died in 2005, and when I heard this year that I was again nominated for the Golden Owl (this time for my last novel, Tirza) I didn’t know with whom I should go and even whether I should go at all.
Not showing up for an award ceremony might leave an impression of arrogance, but it has to be said that the author at these ceremonies is comparable to a cow in the slaughterhouse. He is there to produce some meat but after he has done that, he is merely a disturbance.
At the end I decided to go; what’s wrong with being a disturbance? One of the other nominees was the author Remco Campert.
He is in his seventies and one of the most important Dutch authors. His father died in a German concentration camp in World War II under circumstances that were never completely clear. Most elderly authors are getting more and more pompous; Mr. Campert is the rare exception.
When I won my second Golden Owl, Mr. Campert was the first to rise from his chair to congratulate me.
I dislike sentimentality, but for me this was a touching moment.