Ernest van der Kwast

(Bombay, 1981) is a literary jack-of-all-trades. Van der Kwast discovered his writing talent in the first year of gymnasium (grammar school) when he started writing plays. In his final exam year he made his debut with a short story in the literary magazine Passionate, becoming its editor-in-chief three months later. In 2001 he and Jorg Schellekens started the multicultural and interdisciplinary literary stage Nur Literatur, dubbed by Tommy Wieringa ‘the best literary festival in the Netherlands’. As Yusef el Halal he and various fellow writers published the collection of short stories Man zoekt vrouw om hem gelukkig te maken (Man seeks woman to make him happy) in 2003, called ‘the funniest debut’ of 2004 by Het Parool. In February 2005 his own debut followed, under his own name, Soms zijn dingen mooier als er mensen klappen, (Sometimes things are more beautiful when people start clapping) described by NRC Handelsblad as ‘heartrendingly beautiful’. In 2010 the romanticised story of his Indian mother appeared, Mama Tandoori that was nominated for the NS Publieksprijs 2010. Under the pseudonym Stieger Sloot he published the absurdist novel Stand-in in 2007.