Description
Zedelgem, Stichting Kunst & projecten, 1992
Softcover, 29,7 x 19 cm, 164 pages, facsimile handwriting throughout. Dutch.
An interesting mix of appropriation and fictionalization by Geys, this in the tenth book in the series VISIE published by Stichting Kunst & projecten. Published in an edition of 500 copies.
Pro Justitia — Novel from the 60s
Pro Justitia is a book of +- 180 pages written by me. It is an account of a judicial investigation into the activities of
Jef Geys — bar manager in the form and with the terms used in judicial investigations.
(Archie Jef Geys 7, Jef Geys: Balen, 2022, transl.)
The publication (published by Stichting Kunst & Projecten, Zedelgem, in 1992) features a facsimile of the handwritten ‘novel’. It consists of Geys’s manuscript pages of trial transcripts and witness reports concerning himself and his wife Mia Dammen, owners and managers — according to the text — of various establishments such as Bar El Cid, Dancing Cabaret Tops, Ritz, Heikantbar, Titanic, and Empereur, and accused of offences committed between 1966 and 1971. The book is in fact a transposition of the true story of Eduard (War) Jonckers and his wife Bertha (Betty) Van Winkel, who were indicted for extortionate prices, prostitution, unreported employment and other charges around 1969-71, and who — at the time — were the owners and managers of café SOS, Bar 900, Bar 901 (formerly Bonaparte), Zwaneven and, La Mecca. Geys based his book on photocopies of the original trial transcripts, adapting and rewriting them for the purpose of his ‘novel’, starring him and Mia as the central characters of the plotinstead of War and Bertha, in the language commonly used for legal procedures.
source: Jef Geys – Guide Raisonable. Brussels, WIELS, 2024. Page 40, ref. 410.
A fine copy.
