Hella

is a young a cappella band from Belgium. Four female voices blending together in warm, bright and colorful harmonies. Their music is dedicated to retelling old stories and melodies in Dutch. Interweaving traditional music with contemporary, they produce a sound that shows the richness and beauty of the voice. In January 2024, Hella was honored with the Flanders Folk Award as most promising band, recognizing their potential and unique sound. "Hella, that's four powerful female voices that harmoniously meander into one almost mystical entity. Without the support of any instruments, the four singers manage to produce a full sound that creates an entirely new world." — Jury Flanders Folk Awards 2024
(WU2025)Archive available for: Hella
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Uitreiking Haagse Literatuurprijzen
With: Adelina Ignat, Alfred Schaffer, Anaïs Van Ertvelde, Gijs Scholten van Aschat, Hella, Manon Uphoff, Marieke De Maré, Mirjam van Hengel, Sebastiaan van Eck en Judith Jamin, Simone Atangana Bekono, Tomas Lieske, Valérie Drost
The Hague Literature Prizes 2024 were awarded to Tomas Lieske, Simone Atangana Bekono, Marieke De Maré and Anaïs Van Ertvelde. The Literatuurmuseum and Writers Unlimited organised the festive award ceremony on Saturday afternoon 25 January 2025. The ceremony was moderated by Mirjam van Hengel.
The awards were presented by The Hague alderman Saskia Bruines. Each winner was honoured with a laudatio in the form of a musical or spoken performance by actor Gijs Scholten van Aschat, writer Manon Uphoff, poet Alfred Schaffer (on video), cello players Sebastiaan van Eck and Judith Jamin, and Flemish a capella formation Hella and others. The Young City Poet of The Hague 2024, Adelina Ignat, opened the award ceremony with recitation. Valérie Drost, director of the Literatuurmuseum/Kinderboekenmuseum, welcomed all attending.
The Constantijn Huygens Prize, the Hague Literature Prize for an oeuvre, was awarded to Tomas Lieske (pseudonym of Ton van Drunen, 1943). With this prize, the jury awarded his entire oeuvre, which consists of novels, stories, poems and essays in which language sparkles, curiosity flourishes and imagination is celebrated.
Simone Atangana Bekono (b. 1991) received the Jan Campert Prize 2024, the annual prize for poetry, for Marshmallow. According to the jury, one is left bewildered and charged after reading it. If you hold marshmallows over a flame just long enough, they are perfect: smoky on the outside, sweet on the inside, a tad dirty and irresistible for that very reason. The same goes for this collection of poems: it is an explosive mix of erotic imagery and linguistic tension that will stick in your head long after reading.
Marieke De Maré (b. 1985) was awarded the F. Bordewijk Prize, the annual prize for the best Dutch-language prose book, for Ik ga naar de schapen. The jury believes that with this poetic work, De Maré shows how literature can unite extremes. This novel speaks powerfully about people who are mainly silent, is both light-footed and heavy, and both painfully recognisable and utterly alienating. This book is a gem to cherish.
Anaïs Van Ertvelde (b. 1988) was awarded the J. Greshoff Prize, the biennial prize for a collection of essays, for Handicap: een bevrijding (Handicap: a liberation). It is a book that makes us look differently at what we thought we knew: disability. Not a limitation, but a liberation. Van Ertvelde not only introduces crip theory to our language area, she also revises the language we inherited to talk about bodies. And with that language, she changes our thinking. Handicap is an essay that the jury hopes everyone will have the chance to read.
A sum of €12,000,- was attached to the Constantijn Huygens Prize. The other prizes amount to €6,000,-. This year's jury consisted of: Jeroen Dera, Layla El-Dekmak, Rashif El Kaoui, Laurens Ham, Helma ven Lierop, Valérie Drost (chair), Mathijs Sanders, Jeannette Smit (secretary/treasurer) and Sarah Vankersschaever.
Bookstore De Vries van Stockum was present in the foyer with a stand where books by the award-winning authors and other festival participants, among others, were available for purchase!
Uitreiking Haagse Literatuurprijzen was curated by Jet Steinz on behalf of the Literatuurmuseum and Writers Unlimited. All information on the laureates can be found at literatuurmuseum.nl.