Hizir Cengiz

(1998) won, at age 18, the first Jan Paul Bresser Prize for his essay "The World is a Bucket of Mud", published in De Groene Amsterdammer. From the perspective of student, he describes coming to the Netherlands from Turkey as a small boy and ending up in the Hague's Schilderswijk neighbourhood. There, he sees boys choosing the wrong path, and the hate towards Muslims and the mudslinging increasing. "How is it possible, then, to build something for yourself?" he wonders, finishing with the words: "We have to wait for the mud to dry, to be hard enough to build fortresses." Cengiz has written for Scholieren.com and Mindshakes people profiles for the Hague and Rotterdam Straatniews newspapers. Since winning the prize, he regularly writes columns for De Groene Amsterdammer and is working on a novel.