Come to Amare on Saturday afternoon, 7 September, enjoy the free Spotlight Festival and buy your tickets for Writers Unlimited 2025 for only 15 euros! As a sneak peek, you will see spoken word artist Zaire Krieger and alternative R&B singer XILLAN from 14 to 14:30, introduced by Francis Broekhuijsen.
Writers Unlimited presents, Saturday afternoon 7 September 2024 in Amare, free performances by two young artists who will be part of the January 2025 literary festival: spoken word artist Zaïre Krieger and singer-songwriter XILLAN.
Zaïre Krieger (1995) is a poet, spoken word artist, activist, journalist and translator. In 2019, she received a SPOKEN Award as 'one of the most inspiring Dutch word artists of the moment'. Krieger's work expresses a call for justice and love. In 2020, she co-organised a Black Lives Matter protest in Rotterdam.
Her performances are layered, rhythmic and sincere. She translated the poem The Hill We Climb recited by Amanda Gorman during Joe Biden's inauguration into Dutch. The bilingual edition was released in 2022. In 2023, also bilingual English and Dutch, Gorman's collection Call Us What We Carry was published in Krieger and Tirsa With's translation.
In 2024, Krieger's bilingual poetry collection Chameleon will be published, about creating your own place to feel at home, allowing yourself to be multidimensional, about the opposition between activism and aesthetics, queerness and religion, loving and hating, about being Black in a white world.
XILLAN (1993) grew up with his twin brother Jeangu in Suriname. He moved to the Netherlands in his early twenties to study at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and developed into a successful singer-songwriter of personal, alternative R&B. At the Writers Unlimited Festival in January 2025, XILLAN will be featured as a musician and writer.
In early 2025, his first novel Mensen als zonnen en mensen als manen (People as Suns and People as Moons) will be published. The novel is part of a project that also includes a theater performance and a music album. The project is about growing up as a Black queer boy in Suriname and how notions of masculinity influence an individual's life. It is a remarkable literary coming-of-age debut from an important new voice. Very few books have appeared in Surinamese-Dutch literature that openly testify to queerness.
Francis Broekhuijsen is a presenter, program maker, actor, and voice-over artist specializing in music, literature, art, and culture. He also narrates audiobooks. On the national radio station Sublime, he presented, among others, the daily morning show Sublime Sunrise, the Instagram poetry program Sublime Smooth, and the most relaxed evening show in the Netherlands, The Sublime Experience. Francis is associated with Writers Unlimited as an editor, program maker, and presenter of the festival.
About the Spotlight Festival (Den Haag, 6 and 7 September 2024)
On Friday, September 6, and Saturday, September 7, discover The Hague's culture for 2024-2025 at the Spotlight Festival. This will be the second edition of the festival, which replaced the UIT-Festival in 2023.
At this free festival, you can experience The Hague's rich cultural offerings in a surprising way—whether it's music, dance, theater, comedy, film, or festivals. Throughout the city, venues and theaters will showcase their programs for the coming year just for you!
Come by for sneak previews of all the artists and venues you can look forward to this year. Discover which performances you don't want to miss or where you can engage in music, dance, or other arts in your free time! During the festival, you can also purchase tickets for the new season at a discount from various participants!
