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.
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Archive available for: Hizir Cengiz
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Winternachten goes Schilderswijk
With: Cansu Eroğlu, Hizir Cengiz, Ibrahim Eroğlu, Sanam Sheriff
In collaboration with the Schilderswijk Library, Writers Unlimited presented readings and conversations with Sanam Sheriff, a poetry-slam talent from India, and the young writer-columnist (from Schilderswijk) Hizir Cengiz. Poet and local resident Ibrahim Eroglu recited Turkish poetry together with his daughter, the singer Cansu Eroglu.
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The Hague - Fragments of a Hidden City
Three Hague authors - Max Lerou, Mira Feticu and Hizir Cengiz - have written a new story or poem especially for Writers Unlimited, inspired by what remains hidden in their city. This evening they came to read their new works. What a party!
But what is actually hidden? "The Hague is a segregated city," says Festival curator Shervin Nekuee. He's been living in the Netherlands for thirty years, including the last ten in The Hague. "Poor and rich, young and old, native-born and foreign-born live alongside one another. That's why it's high time to show the city to one another with new stories."
Lerou is a wonderful performer of his own work: as a full-blooded performance poet, he enjoys getting inspired by music and his city. In 2017 he hit the stage during the opening of Parkpop and at the Embassy Festival on the Lange Voorhout.
Feticu writes poetry and prose. Her work has been published in Tirade and De Groene Amsterdammer; she writes a weekly column in Den Haag Centraal newspaper and is a programmer of B-Unlimited.
At age 18, Cengiz won the first Jan Paul Bresser Prize (2017) for his essay "The World Is a Bucket of Mud", published in De Groene Amsterdammer. In it, he describes how he moved to the Netherlands and ended up in the Schilderswijk. In the meantime he has been writing regular columns for De Groene Amsterdammer and working on a novel.
