Sholeh Rezazadeh

(Iran, 1989) -- writer, poet and columnist -- received much praise and many prizes for her debut novel De hemel is altijd paars (The Sky is Always Purple, 2021). Readers were moved by the story of a young woman working in a charity shop, who falls in love with a musician and reflects on her homeland of Iran with mixed feelings. Rezazadeh, who studied medicine, came to The Netherlands in 2015. Her second novel, Ik ken een berg die op me wacht (I Know a Mountain Waiting for Me) appeared in 2023. In her characteristic poetic style, she writes about a woman who upends her life and travels from Amsterdam to Iran to join a nomadic family -- a story about yearning for quiet and space, told from the perspective of a river. Her first poetry collection, Neem ruim zei de zee, was published in 2024.