Marylin Simons

(1959, Surinam) left for the Netherlands to educate and develop herself. There she attended secondary school and followed that with higher vocational education. In 1982 Simons returned to Surinam. Here she began to write for the magazine De Tweede Ronde (The second round), the newspaper De Ware Tijd (The real time) and various other papers. In her story In naam van God en Obia (In name of God and Obia) Simons sketches in a beautiful, clear manner, a family drama. She received for this book in 2002 the Kwakoe Literature prize. This prize is actually connected to the similarely named multi-cultural Kwakoe festival in the Netherlands. She made her debut in December 2003 with the collection of stories Carrousel (Roundabout), published by the Surinamese publishers Okopipi. Marylin writes about ordinairy people of Surinam. People that she comes across on the street, in bus 9, along Paramaribo's Waterside, on the plantation and in the waiting rooms of hospitals. 'It's the ordinairy people', says Marylin, 'that provide the ingredients for an unusual story'.
WIN 2004