An Interview with Astrid H. Roemer

ASTRID ROEMER: I started writing in Suriname, where the only language the people speak is Dutch; and my family are all teachers, physicians, and civil servants, so the only way for me to express myself is in Dutch. In Suriname they speak fourteen languages, and Dutch is the official one. I started writing and was published in the newspapers there when I was twelve, so writing was just something very natural for me and being published also was normal, but I could not imagine being an author, because there were no authors in Suriname. The only professional writers were journalists. Before I came to Holland, I won different local awards, but still there was no reason for me to think that I would become a professional author. Then I came to Holland, when I was about twenty, and I discovered other professional authors; I would read about them in the newspapers here in Holland and then slowly in my mind thoughts grew about being a professional author. I liked the way the authors were reviewed and the way they were promoted and the way their novels were bought. Then to inspire me there was Bea Vianen, the first black woman to have an official publisher in Holland, because there were no publishers in Suriname.