When we first met him in 2011 in Oslo, the American author David Vann had been living out of a suitcase for months – that is how often he travelled. This first interview, for HP/De Tijd, was later continued in Amsterdam and in Brussels, where we spoke to him for De Boekensalon, Schrijven Magazine and Reporters Online. David Vann is among the best American writers of our time and among our personal favourites. His incredibly incisive novels, for which you sometimes need to force yourself not to cover your eyes while reading, prove his deep human insight.