Irene van der Linde & Nicole Segers – Blood and Honey
Encounters on the Borders in the Balkan Region
——— Writer and historian Irene van der Linde and documentary photographer Nicole Segers travel in the footsteps of the British writer Rebecca West through former Yugoslavia and Albania. With West’s magnum opus Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1942) in their hands, they go in search of the meaning of the new borders in the Balkans.
In Blood and Honey (Bloed en honing), Van der Linde and Segers travel over quiet roads, arid plateaus, through desolate villages and dark rock gorges. They visit cities with magical names like Dubrovnik, Sarajevo, Skopje, Ohrid and Tirana. They show the world of ordinary people with an extraordinary history. People who dream, fight, fear, struggle with their fate. As in a polyphonic choir they tell about their lives. Blood and Honey is an innovative and unique combination of literary non-fiction and documentary photography.
Blood and honey is about unity and separation. About the sobering reality of nationalism put into practice. About hope and disappointment, passion and lethargy. About daily worries and geopolitical forces. About the role of the past in the present. About the fragmentation of a region, a danger that also threatens societies elsewhere in Europe.
‘Don’t think that it won’t happen, that there can’t be war. The world in which you live, which you take for granted, can be over in one fell swoop. Nobody believed it, nor did we, but it happened anyway,’ says historian Jesenko Galijašević at his home in Sarajevo.
Irene van der Linde is a Dutch writer and journalist
Irene van der Linde (1963) has worked on the editorial board of De Groene Amsterdammer since 2012. She studied historical sciences at the University of Amsterdam and worked for years as a freelance writer and journalist for various daily and weekly newspapers. Together with documentary photographer Nicole Segers, Van der Linde has been exploring the borders of Europe since 2001.
Nicole Segers is a Dutch freelance photographer
Nicole Segers (1960) works mainly in long-term projects and published and exhibited her photos in the Netherlands and abroad. Her work was exhibited in amongst others De Kunsthal in Rotterdam, in collaboration with Rem Koolhaas in Brussel, at the BredaPhoto Festival, at the French Photoreporter Festival and in Museum Het Valkhof in Nijmegen.
RECOMMENDATIONS
‘Van der Linde’s calm and honest slow journalism fits Segers’ beautiful images wonderfully. Van der Linde pulls the reader of the couch with her vivid stories and Segers does exactly the same with her photographs. They alternated between being romantic and realistic and have been printed on soft newsprint paper. You can look and read endlessly.’
de Volkskrant
‘Everybody should read this book about a deserted corner of Europe. Blood and Honey is excellent journalistic history writing.’
NRC Handelsblad *****
‘Their outstanding work Blood and Honey tells the stories of the people they met and the places they visited. Currently, the book is only available in Dutch, but hopefully it will be translated soon. It will be absolutely compelling for an international readership.’
De Facto
‘Blood and Honey is a heartbreaking contemporary travel guide. It does what all good travel guides do, provide insight and break down the barriers for those of us, like me, who would want to make this journey themselves.’
Trouw
‘Blood and Honey is a must-have, a book to browse through, a history lesson, and a road story, all in one.’
De Standaard
‘The Balkan region as a musical composition, the book reads like a symphony, a work with some major chords but most of all minor chords. This big and epic book is especially suitable as a stay-at-home travel guide. With the subtle writing of Van der Linde and the impressive photos of Segers, you travel along from Zagreb in Croatia to Budva in Montenegro, through Bosnia, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Albania.’
Guido van Hengel in Donau Magazine
PRE-PUBLICATION (In Dutch)
‘We waren allemaal Joegoslaven’, De Groene Amsterdammer, 22/10/2020
BOOKREVIEW IN ENGLISH: JORIE HORSTHUIS IN DE FACTO
WEBINAR: TRILOGY BORDERS OF EUROPE
DUTCH FOUNDATION FOR LITERATURE: DUTCH NON FICTION AUTUMN 2021
- Title: Bloed en honing
- Subtitle: Ontmoetingen op de grenzen van de Balkan
- Authors: Irene van de Linde & Nicole Segers
- Language: Dutch
- Date of publication: First printrun, Hardcover, October 2020 | Second printrun, Hardcover, March 2021 | Third printrun, Paperback, February 2023
- Number of pages: 688
- Amount of photos: 216
- Publisher: Boom Amsterdam in cooperation with Lecturis
