Displacements

If there is one line that’s been reverberating in Stefan Hertmans’ mind for years, it’s a well-known quote from Victor Klemperer, which was written with a steady hand in his famous journals during the Nazi period, amid terror and uncertainty: ‘The contemporary witness knows nothing.’

There is one thing that we do know: this is a time of transition, transitioning to something we’re only just beginning to understand. We are all eyewitnesses, although we’re only partially aware of what it is we’re witnessing: current reality. Every day we see new changes, without knowing exactly what they will amount to.

In these ruminations, as erudite as they are sensitive, Stefan Hertmans undertakes the challenge of trying to capture something of this zeitgeist, of pinning down the things that tend to elude our grasp in the chaos of day-to-day life.