Cowboyland

Anke Cuijpers received a contribution for her new book Cowboyland. The Ramones were always a dysfunctional family, with parents who mainly dream, drink and desire. Until the father first lights one of the coats on the coat rack, and then his cigarette. The house turns into a ruin. Only Pia escapes death as if by chance. Or does coincidence not exist. For why is she still alive, and her mother, brother and sisters have died? Fifteen years later, a rancorous encounter between father and daughter seems inevitable, and Transylvanian asylum seekers wander the morose hunting grounds of Cowboyland. Loosely based on a newspaper article about a deliberately lit house fire, the story is as suspenseful as it is poignant.

Anke is a writer of stories, poems and reviews. She took a diverse range of professional courses, from social worker to insurance counselor, and worked in more than a dozen trades, ranging from cleaner and assembly line work to copywriter. For a time, she co-owned a thriving eatery. She changed course after studying the literary craft at the Schrijversvakschool Amsterdam. Her work appears regularly in literary magazines, both on paper and digitally. Her poetry landed her several times in De Gedichtenwedstrijd Top 100 (formerly the Turing), and she performed in the Prinsentuin in Groningen. She is a climate poet, and has been a vegetarian for many years. She lives and works in Maastricht. For Bazarow.com she reviews literary fiction, translated and untranslated.