At your service

Annouk Van de Voorde, writer

Born to Belgian parents, Annouk Van de Voorde is a writer and a citizen of the world... Annouk grew up in Rwanda on a quinine plantation and went to school in Europe and Zaire. Her life as a child was an exotic one. She is presently working on a trilogy about three generations of a European family living in Africa. Her experience in writing combined with her ability to listen, have prepared Annouk Van de Voorde well for the task of recording lives with empathy and professional care. We asked Annouk to introduce herself in her own words:

First there was Sound... Where I grew up in central Africa there was no T.V. Instead the rolling of tom toms. It spread stories from village to hamlet. Deep in the night I listened, enthralled. The beat sketched visions. The rhythm taught me climaxes. I dreamed of faraway places. Soon Sound became echo. And the ensuing silence hardly remembered Sound.

Then there were Books... We had many on our plantation. Each book I read shaped my life which I crafted like a novel, from sadness to laughter. I mined all my dreams through the dynamite of words. Today I write my own stories. To share the vision of faraway places. To give someone else a dream. Unlike Sound, written pictures last. Forever