Additional information
by Charlotte Van Den Broeck (Author), David Colmer (Translator)
Conceived while collaborating with a Dutch artist on a project in Death Valley, California, Charlotte Van den Broeck's The Inside of a Stone explores desert landscapes and womanhood - and the emotional resonance between the two - while reconceptualising their metaphorical relationship. With close observation and striking images she engages with the arid, eroded landscape. In other poems she considers sexual violence while watching a pair of mating turtles, imagines an alternative emotional life for Ilsebill, the fisherman's wife from the Grimm fairytale, and explores medieval poet Hildegard of Bingen's magical healing.
After first making her mark as a compelling performer, Belgian poet Charlotte Van den Broeck was acclaimed as one of Europe's most innovative and original new voices in poetry. Her first two collections, Chameleon and Nachtroer, were published together in David Colmer's English translation by Bloodaxe in 2020. The Inside of a Stone marks a departure from the themes of those earlier books, which often return to childhood and youth in urban and European landscapes.
Author Biography
Charlotte Van den Broeck was born in Turnhout, Belgium, in 1991. After studies in English and German, she took a Masters in Drama at the Royal Conservatoire in Antwerp. She has published three collections of poetry, Kameleon (2015), which was awarded the Herman de Coninck debut prize for poetry by a Flemish author; Nachtroer (2017), which was nominated for the VSB Poetry Prize 2018 and the Ida Gerhard Prize; and Aarduitwrijvingen (2021). The first two volumes are combined in Chameleon Nachtroer, translated from the Dutch by David Colmer (Bloodaxe Books, 2020). David Colmer's translation of Aarduitwrijvingen is published by Bloodaxe Books in 2025 under the title The Inside of a Stone. Her poetry has also been translated into German, Spanish, French, Serbian and Arabic. In 2016 she opened the Frankfurt Bookfair together with Dutch poet Arnon Grunberg. In 2017 she was one of that year's Versopolis poets, performing at several European festivals including Ledbury in Britain. In 2022 David McKay's translation of her prose book Bold Ventures: Thirteen Tales of Architectural Tragedy (Waagstukken) was published by Other Press in the US. As well as publishing critically acclaimed books she is renowned for her distinctive performances, which differ from UK/US versions of spoken word as theatre pieces 'searching for the speakability and experience of oral poetry', now presented in English as well as Dutch.
