Ilonka Reintjens
(The Netherlands, 1978) is a producer and project coordinator for literary events. Before this, she worked as publisher and editor at various publishing houses. She currently is business and artistic leader of the literary festival Meet Me at the Lighthouse on the Dutch island Schiermonnikoog, and for Writers Unlimited as a program coordinator and curator for the Writers Unlimited international literary festival The Hague and the monthly Writers Series.
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Archive available for: Ilonka Reintjens
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Writers Meeting
With: Alvina Chamberland, Andrej Koerkov, Asta Olivia Nordenhof, Francis Broekhuijsen, George Abraham, Ilonka Reintjens, Judith Uyterlinde, Maarten van der Graaff, Margot Dijkgraaf, Mikaella Clements, Neeke Scheers, Onjuli Datta, Rešoketšwe Manenzhe, Rosabelle Illes, Stefanie Parisius-Sewotaroeno, Viv Groskop, Yael van der Wouden
The Writers Meeting is a private event in Huis van het Boek (House of the Book), The Hague, organized especially for and with the international authors attending the Writers Unimited International Literature Festival 2025, as well as with several Dutch authors and the team of festival programmers.
The Writers Meeting starts with a tour de table during which you are asked to introduce yourself and your work using an object, image or ritual that is important to you when writing.
The conversations are meant to get to know each other, to exchange ideas on the current state of the world we live in and the meaning of literature for our time. We use On Fire, this festival edition's theme, as motto.
Margot Dijkgraaf, literary critic, writer, curator, interviewer and debate host, leads the discussion. She gives the floor to each of you. You then have the opportunity to react to one another's observations. Meeting host is Barbara den Ouden, Team Coordinator and International Specialist at the Dutch Foundation for Literature.
The roundtable discussion is followed by a short private tour of the museum and its current exhibition Books as..., showcasing books from its collection alongside works by contemporary artists including Shani Leseman, An Onghena, Jorge Mendez Blake, and Hans Op De Beeck. The exhibition suggests various roles of books in our society and in our personal lives.
Huis van het Boek, oldest book museum in the world, is located in the former residence of the Baron Van Westreenen van Tiellandt (1783-1848) and is devoted to the hand-written and printed book of the past and present. Open to the public since 1852, the museum maintains an extensive collection of books from all periods of Western book history, starting with medieval manuscripts that are entirely written and illuminated by hand. The distinctive book room where a selection of these superb volumes can be seen, offers an overview of the development of writing, layout and decoration of manuscripts. The museum also organizes temporary exhibitions on themes related to both the old and modern book.
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Free at Last: A Day of Decolonised Life
Exciting! Are these fairy tales or is this finally a decolonised world? Writers Unlimited asked a very international group of eight authors to sum up a day of colonisation-free existence in poetry or prose. Eight days of liberation, each in their own way.
In this event you will see and hear Akwasi, the Dutch rapper, actor and writer of Ghanaian background; Barbaros Altuğ, the Turkish writer, journalist and literary agent; Asmaa Azaizeh, Palestinian poet, journalist and cultural curator born in Lower Galilee in Israel's north; Petina Gappah, lawyer and writer from Zimbabwe; Cağla Meknuze, jounalist and poet from Turkey; Jolyn Phillips, writer, poet and composer from South Africa; Simon(e) van Saarloos, American-Dutch writer and philosopher; and Vamba Sherif, Liberian-Dutch writer and journalist.
The authors present their work in their preferred writing language or mother tongue; Dutch and English translations are projected simultaneously.
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Poetry Unlimited: Surinam and Aruba
The Dutch-Surinamese poet Antoine de Kom and Rosabelle Illes from Aruba have a conversation with Chris Keulemans about their work and how roots influence it. Both also read from their own work.
Antoine de Kom is of Dutch-Surinamese background and the grandson of Anton de Kom, the Surinamese nationalist and resistance fighter. De Kom spent a great deal of his youth in Surinam. His first two poetry collections reflect that time: Tropen (Tropics, 1991) and De kilte in Brasilia (The Cold in Brasilia, 1995). The volumes Zebrahoeven (Zebra Hooves, 2001) and Chocoladetranen (Chocolate Tears, 2004) followed. De Kom was nominated for the C. Buddingh Prize and the Ida Gerhardt Poetry Prize, and his latest collection, Ritmisch zonder string (Rhythmic without String, 2013) won the VSB Poetry Prize.
Rosabelle Illes debuted in 2005 with her poetry collection Beyond Insanity. In 2010 she published Spiel di mi Alma, a poetry collection in her mother tongue of Papiamento that reveals a world of contradictions to the reader. Her third book, Title (2016), is a collection of stories, poems and thoughts. On the stage, Illes transforms into a true performer of her poems, carrying away her audience in a stream of words, movement and meaning.
Tip: Rosabelle Illes also appears at Opening Night - A Free Mind on 15 January at Theater aan het Spui, during Worden Worden Zinnen - the Writers Unlimited edition on 16 January at Paard, and with Cynthia McLeod on Saturday, 18 January at the Schilderswijk Library.
