Mariken Heitman

(The Netherlands, 1983) writes and works as a gardener and vegetable cultivation teacher. She has published short stories and wrote articles and essays in daily newspapers de Volkskrant, De Standaard and NRC, among others. In 2019, her debut novel De wateraap (The Water Monkey) was published, about a loner's gentle resistance to the straitjacket of convention. How do you become human, if that means being either a woman or a man? Her second novel Wormmaan (Worm Moon, 2021) was awarded the Libris Literature Prize. After setbacks at work, plant breeder Elke retreats to a Wadden Sea island with a forgotten pea variety, an androgynous crop that is difficult to control. Slowly, she realises that she shapes crops in the same way that society tries to shape her. In her novel De mierenkaravaan (The Ant Caravan, 2024), gardener Kiek discovers a hare one day. Although every living creature has its role to play, the animal threatens to disrupt the ecological balance on the farm. At the same time, a progressive disease announces itself that will irrevocably change Kiek's life.

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