Odile Heynders: "We have to get literature off the shelves and into people's lives"
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The truth in fiction. It sounds like a contradiction, but fiction can contain a lot of truth, according to Odile Heynders. "We are setting up a research program in which we focus on a number of European cities. It is about searching for identity in the big city. The program also contains a literary part: we study novels and the lives of the characters in those cities. The way in which Zadie Smith describes her London characters teaches you at least as much as you can learn from interviews with real Londoners. Fiction adds value. Literature provides social knowledge that, for instance, can serve as input for city planning."
Imagination
Thus, literature can play a useful role in society in countless ways. When that happens, things become interesting for Odile. “We have to get literature off the shelves and into people’s lives, I think. I want to make literature relevant in a different context. Not that I want to tell writers what to do, but I think it is interesting when they engage in the public debate. I try to stimulate this. They have a way with words, they know how to use narrative techniques and how to trigger the mechanisms that govern people’s imagination. Writers look at the world from a slightly different angle than most other people.
Freedom
"Tilburg University is a very pleasant working environment,” Odile says. “It is small-scale, business-like, and open. My great fascination with science is that you are free to explore all avenues of thinking. And at the university, you get to spend loads of time doing so. I enjoy thinking. I love to get my teeth into a subject."
"Writers look at the world from a slightly different angle than most other people"