Oost-Azië
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| Author | J. Slauerhoff |
|---|---|
| Language | Dutch |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Publisher | De Gemeenschap (first ed.) |
Publication date | 1928 |
| Publication place | Netherlands |
| Preceded by | Clair-obscur (1927) |
| Followed by | Eldorado (1928) |
Oost-Azië (Dutch for "East Asia") is a volume of poetry by Dutch poet J. Slauerhoff. First published in 1928 under the pseudonym John Ravenswood, the collection contains poems whose theme is the Far East, a part of the globe Slauerhoff knew from his career as a sailor.
Oost-Azië contains four sections. The first and the third are collections of various poems; the second and the third are themed sections, dedicated to Macao and Korea respectively.
- 8 various poems, mostly landscapes and topical poems
- a group of 4 poems about Macau, the last one a biographical sonnet about Luís de Camões
- 15 various poems, including landscape and character sketches
- 7 poems about Korea
The first section opens with an editorial comment, in which "J. Slauerhoff" explains that he is publishing these verses on behalf of the recently deceased "John Ravenswood", a Dutchman of Scottish descent, who had withdrawn from Western life to Jeju Island (then called "Quelpart" by Europeans) where he married a local woman after deserting the whaling ship on which he sailed.
Macau occupies an important place in Slauerhoff's work; it is the setting of his 1931 novel Het verboden rijk, in which Camões was one of the two protagonists. Oost-Azië's Macao section is dedicated to Constâncio José da Silva, an important Macanese newspaper editor. Two of the Macao poems, and a poem about a Portuguese fort in Asia, were translated into French for Fleurs de Marécage.[1]