Rachid Novaire – Returning

Audiobook ‘Returning’ of Rachid Novaire.

In Terugkeren (Returning), a V.O.C officer has heard that some tribes on the African gold coast believe that the white men who have arrived by ship are ancestors returning in a different form. This makes him feel optimistic that a woman, who is a local royalty, will welcome him with open arms, as if she had been expecting him for a long time. But something seems to keep getting in the way, when he wants to negotiate about gold and goods. Why does she keep asking him questions in her own language? When he fails to answer, but expects that he can make a profit in this region, this turns out to be a disastrous misunderstanding which leads to his death. Can there be some truth in their being related? Three hundred years later the white colonist returns to earth as an African boat refugee, to find out that the white people in Europe do not welcome him with open arms.

Rashid Novaire was born in 1979 in Amsterdam, where he lives and works. He is an author of short stories and novels. In 1999 he made his debut with the collection of short stories Reigers in Caïro, with which he was a finalist for the NPS Culture prize 2000. With the scenario De straten van Mefta, that he wrote in commission of the Dutch Film Foundation (Nederlandse Filmstichting), he won the European Broadcasting Union prize. In 2004 he was shortlisted for the Libris Literature prize with the novel Maïsroest (2003). This was followed, among others, by the novels Het lied van de rog (2007), Afkomst (2008) and Zeg maar dat we niet thuis zijn (2015). This year the novel De vooravond will be published, about an engagement in 1939 between a German woman and a Dutch man. Novaire also publishes articles and columns, and writes theatre scenarios. The Bavarian State Theatre made a play in 2009 out of Novaire’s radio book Terugkeren under the title Gegenreise.

This program is part of A Fair Share of Utopia