‘Freethinker and opposing force’
Interview with Roxane van Iperen (De Gooi en Eemlander, 12–07–2016)
When she reached the age of forty, she had finally found her voice. She wrapped her message in her debut novel, which is out now. Roxane van Iperen (1976) fights against perception and baseless arguments. The lawyer-publicist provokes and challenges us: ‘don’t accept, dare to think. I want people to broaden their horizons.’
Whether she’s publishing articles or advising companies as a lawyer, this is vintage Roxane van Iperen: Challenging, provoking people to think for themselves. “I counteract. Why do you do this? Is this true? I break things down, I go back to the source to rebuild my argument. And that works. You feel confident. There’s no insecurity, anxiety or panic.’
The story of her first book had been lingering in her mind for quite some time. ‘Combined with many more stories. I wrote down the framework in three months, in the evenings, after work, back in 2013. The search for a publisher took longer.’ Scum of the Earth is the life story of a boy at the fringes of society, which starts in a barn in a desolate desert.
‘What does your background do to you, the place where you grow up, when you start to build your life,’ Roxane explains. ‘We believe that we can control everything. I want this story to change the perceptions in the heads of my readers. Plus, I ‘just’ wanted to write a compelling tale’, she laughs almost apologetically. ‘Are you familiar with the Portuguese term ‘Saudade’?’ She doesn’t wait for my answer: ‘It’s untranslatable, a nagging, melancholy feeling. A longing for something that may never have existed.’ Like what you sometimes feel, looking back at things that happened in your youth’. On the back of her book it says ‘She takes the reader to a world where morality and malleability are hollow notions. There is but one goal: survival.’
Big publishing houses she talked to found her book ‘too masculine’, she says while frowning. ‘I had to tone it down, or publish it under a pseudonym or make a thriller of it, she sniffs. ‘It was way out of the comfort zone and therefore more difficult to put on the market.’ Fiercely: ‘As an advisor I do commissioned work but this is my own work. I have put my heart and soul in it.’ After Lebowski had the guts to publish it, she started writing and situated the story in Brazil.
And now she is an expert on Brazil. She’s been there and has built a network. ‘I speak Spanish, because I went to school there for two years, now my Portuguese sounds similar’, she chuckles. ‘I have read a lot of South American and Spanish literature. Somehow it all comes together: also because I get angry about a lot of things.’ A country in crisis is perfect for this. And, Brazil is hot because of the Olympics in Rio this summer.
She does research on and analyses abuse, these days especially in Brazil, and takes a stand on the radio, in newspapers, during lectures and on her blog. ‘Take, for example, the murders that were covered up, the media in the hands of the elite, the police and the political situation combined with the bankrupt business model of the Olympics. This hurts the underprivileged the most. I am against cultural relativism and I stand for universal human and fundamental rights.’ The sanguineous lawyer all but slams her fist on the table.
Where does this zeal and passionate defence come from? She is reluctant to talk about her parents and her youth as a second child of five. ‘We used to move around a lot because of their work. In my case this meant a new class every year and surviving. ‘ Is there a link with her novel? ‘Hmm, perhaps,’ she counters. ‘Maybe the seed was planted there, to speak out. Maybe that’s why I went to law school.’
She was sixteen when she moved from Spain to Sint Michelsgestel, in the south of Holland, to do her A levels. ‘That cold reception has never left me. I was an outsider in class, they couldn’t pin me down. The others parents knew each other from skiing, tennis and hockey. So they knew who was who. But that didn’t go for me. So they just left it,’ is how she phrases her feeling of being left out, not being seen.
That is what she teaches her three children now: make contact, don’t just assume. Look at who somebody is, not at who his or her parents are. She proudly tells of her daughter, recreating a Syrian refugee camp on the schoolyard to collect money. ‘They are very involved, all three of them. They have already found their voices. They didn’t have to reach the age of forty, like me.’ But now there is the book, that echoes her voice. ‘I am glad I have shed my shyness. I simply did it’, she says triumphantly. ‘Sometimes it feels like something big, but in the greater scheme of things it’s next to nothing. I just hope that people get a different idea of the basement of society; about the people we always talk about, but never talk with. And I also hope to easily come up with a second story’.
Whatever comes up, she will keep on working as a lawyer. ‘An exciting profession, believe me,’ as she tries to adjust possible prejudice. ‘Why have treaties been signed and laws been approved? Fundamental rights, freedom of speech, of religion, privacy’, summing up all interesting and actual themes. She writes frequently about these matters but doesn’t see herself as an opinion leader. ‘Because I don’t know’, she explains briefly and with authority. ‘I don’t have the answers, but I want people to think for themselves and to broaden their horizons.’
Roxane van Iperen (1976) is a lawyer and publicist. She writes for FD, NRC Handelsblad, Het Parool, De Morgen, Follow the Money and she is a guest-correspondent for De Correspondent. SCUM OF THE EARTH is her first novel. Read an excerpt here.
