Alfabet/Alphabet

Lovers of language will be entranced by this slim volume. The book contains 26 short pieces, each centered around a Dutch word beginning with a different letter of the alphabet and its English translation. Each segment is a poetic meditation on some aspect of the author’s transition from her first home in the Netherlands to her second home in Canada, and with it, her transition from the Dutch language to English. 

The author explores themes such as how English speakers perceive her mother tongue as alien, the profound emotional connection she feels for Dutch, which she describes as “my pulse… show more.

Any book about language should be well-written, and this brief work of prose displays the luminous skill of a gifted poet. Sadiqa de Meijer moved to Canada as a child, yet the words, sounds, and cadences of Dutch remain deeply embedded in her imagination. Her succinct, elegant investigations of Dutch and English, family and home, resound far beyond her personal history. “Mother tongue,” she asks, “is this when you’ll surface, under cover of night, in the mind’s somnolent dark?”