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An epic road trip along the Danube offers an immersive narration of the myths and stories of this watery ecology in concert with the author's experience of pregnancy and childbirth.
Pursued by torrential rain, an emerging writer journeys across Europe to encounter the wilds of the Danube River and study its folklore. Accompanied by her husband, Leon, and and traveling in an old camper van, she explores the stories the river brings to light about ecology, pregnancy, and the historical narratives of femininity, weaving together reflections on motherhood, physicality, mythology, and time.
Following the Danube downstream, from Black Forest to Black Sea, she sets out to realize her novel, which blends autofiction with reality; and to consider pregnancy and motherhood through the lens of the river’s birth and death, a continual cycle of incarnation that reflects human fertility and decay.
For readers of Maggie Nelson, Anne Carson, Kate Zambreno, Hélène Cixous, and Jazmina Barrera, this meditation on motherhood and writing joins a chorus of forces, from gender roles and the pressures of a family road trip to wildness, weather, and imagination.
"Reveals a network of significances, sparkling and crackling with inventive ideas. —De Standaard
"A penetrating voyage to discover maternal intuition, a lost natural instinct and a sense of home." —Humo
"There has been a long-standing and problematic association of women and water in the (western) imagination, as the field of ecofeminism has shown and criticized (e.g. Gaard 2001). Indeed, woman-as-water has alternatively been associated with a flowing female pollution in antiquity (e.g. Carson 2000), a destructive wave in Judeo-Christian imagery (Helmreich 2017), religious ecstasy due to her wet nature in medieval times (e.g. Fraeters 2004), and a distant deep as a “territory of desire” to be conquered in fascist ideologies (e.g. Theweleit 1987: 294). Now that questions of water become increasingly more important as the Blue Humanities take off (e.g. Mentz 2024), it seems time to take stock of this woman-as-water imagery. ... Autotheoretical writings by Canadian, Dutch, and Belgian authors Anne Carson, Lieke Marsman, and Anneleen Van Offel ... reimagine questions of feminine identity through water at the intersection of ecology, self-other relations, and the body. Building on Astrida Neimanis’s (2013, 2017) identification of types of “hydro-logics,” ... water functions as a (distorting) mirror in these works, shaping what these women writers would like to see in our current societies. Reflecting on the complexity of women-water relationships, these autotheoretical writings consider what role water can play in imagining more sustainable futures for women in the Athropocene."
—Dr. Helena Van Praet, "Mirrors, Women, and Water in Contemporary English- and Dutch-Language Autotheory"
Anneleen Van Offel is a Flemish author who bases her work on research, a journey or an encounter. She has a Master of Drama degree from Antwerp Conservatory and was named one of the twenty talents of 2020 to watch after her debut, Hier is alles veilig (All Is Safe Here 2020). She hosts a popular literary-philosophical podcast and often appears on stage as performer, host, or interviewer, as well as being programmer/curator for various literary festivals. She has written guest columns for Flemish newspapers De Morgen and De Standaard, and short stories and poetry for several literary journals. In 2024 and 2025, she was awarded a place in the EU development program CELA for emerging literary talent. She lives with her familiy in Ghent.
Fiona Graham is a multilingual literary translator with a first-class BA Honors degree in German and French from Oxford University and an MA in General Linguistics from Reading University. Having started her career as a translator at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she has also worked as a linguist at the European Parliament and the European Commission.