Sanpaku by Jef Geeraerts

(B2) An authentic cello. A banal repair by a luthier degenerates into a scriptural mess of facts, appearances and feelings. The gifted musician suddenly dies. Then begins a frantic hunt for the instrument confronting a tragic past - the deportation of the Jews of Antwerp - and the magical future - in a manor house in the Dordogne. Born in 1930 in Antwerp, Jef Geeraerts, one of the leaders of current Flemish literature, reveals here one of his facets alongside his other publications: "Black venus" (Actes Sud, "Babel"), "l'Ambassadeur (Les Syrtes) and Night Birds (Le castor astral).

(NGV)

(trans. Marie Hooghe, Ed. Le Castor Astral, coll. Escales du Nord, 216 p., 15 euros)