Sophie Derkzen
(The Netherlands, 1984) is a journalist and presenter with a fascination for international politics and culture. On Dutch national broadcaster NPO Radio 1 she presents Bureau Buitenland for VPRO, awarded the prestigious Silver Reiss Microphone for best radio programme of the year in 2022. She made the podcasts Stad in Oorlog: Charkiv een jaar onder vuur (City at War: Kharkiv one year under fire; winner Silver Reiss Microphone 2023) and Generatie Merkel (4**** in de Volkskrant).She previously wrote for major Dutch publications, was a guest editor at the German newspaper Die Zeit, and worked in the political section of the Dutch Embassy in Berlin.
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Archive available for: Sophie Derkzen
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Freedom: interview with Timothy Snyder
With: Sophie Derkzen, Timothy Snyder
Historian Timothy Snyder is world-renowned for his books on tyranny and Eastern Europe. His latest book is about how freedom is at stake. On Saturday afternoon 25 January 2025, Sophie Derkzen interviews him at the Writers Unlimited International Literature Festival The Hague about his book On Freedom.
On Freedom is the equally brilliant and highly topical new book by the renowned Yale historian and author of the bestsellers Bloodlands and On Tyranny, among others.
What is freedom? Why is our freedom at risk? And why is freedom our only chance of survival? Freedom is the core of our Western world, the heart of our democracy, but we have lost sight of what it means, resulting in crisis.
Too many people see freedom as the absence of state power. We think we are free when we can do and say what we want and are hindered as little as possible by the state. But real freedom is not so much freedom from as freedom to - to thrive, to put things on the line for a future we choose and work for together.
Timothy Snyder is a internationally leading historian specialising in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the Holocaust. The professor of History at Yale University has published influential studies such as Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central Europe: A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz (1998); The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 (2003); Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine (2005); The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke (2008); Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010), Thinking the Twentieth Century (with Tony Judt, 2012); Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (2015); On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017); The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (2018) and the highly topical On Freedom (2024).
Sophie Derkzen is a journalist and presenter with a fascination for international politics and culture. On Dutch national broadcaster NPO Radio 1 she presents Bureau Buitenland for VPRO, awarded the prestigious Silver Reiss Microphone for best radio programme of the year in 2022. She made the podcasts Stad in Oorlog: Charkiv een jaar onder vuur (City at War: Kharkiv one year under fire; winner Silver Reiss Microphone 2023) and Generatie Merkel (4**** in de Volkskrant).
Interview with Timothy Snyder has been curated for Writers Unlimited Festival by Ilonka Reintjens.
Festival tip 1: Timothy Snyder, Andrej Koerkov and Lisa Weeda talk about wartime writing during Saturday Night Unlimited (25 January from 20:00 at Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag) in the subprogramme Writing in Times of War.Festival tip 2: for the full festival experience, go to the grand festival events Friday Night Unlimited (24 January) and Saturday Night Unlimited (25 January)! Both nights you choose your own route along some 20 performances, readings and conversations on five stages in Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag. English and Dutch spoken.
Festivaltip 3: as Writers Unlimited presents its literature festival for 30 years, we celebrate this anniversary with Playing with Fire, a show full of music, dance and literature at Amare (Danstheater) on Sunday afternoon, 26 January. You will see and hear Spinvis, Shirma Rouse, XILLAN, Babs Gons, Joost Oomen, Zaïre Krieger, Claudia Karapanou Flamenco Trio, Royal Conservatoire Dance and percussion group Pulse led by Eli Wing, among others. Book now! Tickets are 11 euros (under 29s or students), or 16 - 35 euros (depending on seat chosen). Note: Dutch spoken.
From 23 to 26 January 2025, Writers Unlimited International Literature Festival The Hague is to be found in theatres, libraries and schools throughout the city: from Theater aan het Spui, Filmhuis Den Haag, Amare and Paard to Theater Dakota, Theater De Vaillant, the Laakkwartier, Nieuw Waldeck, Schilderswijk and Ypenburg libraries, the Institute of Social Studies and De Haagse Hogeschool. With over 120 writers, poets and spoken-word artists and musicians from the Netherlands and abroad. With readings, prose, poetry, storytelling, spoken word, author interviews, topical talks, films and music.
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Elif Shafak - There are rivers in the sky
International bestselling author Elif Shafak talks to Sophie Derkzen about her new novel There Are Rivers in the Sky. A conversation about how water remembers, and people forget. How we are connected to the past and what we can learn from those who have gone before us. Naaz, singer-songwriter and great admirer of Elif Shafak, will pay tribute to her, acccompanied on piano by Willem 't Hart.
Elif Shafak is an award-winning Turkish-British bestselling author and important critical voice in world literature with a vast body of novels, essays and nonfiction. Her books, written in Turkish and English, have been published in 55 languages and nominated for major literary awards. Her oeuvre is praised for how she blends Eastern and Western narrative traditions into fiction that is at once local and global. In her books, she denounces religious fanaticism and xenophobia. She has a special interest in feminism, Sufism, Ottoman culture and the city of Istanbul. Well-read titles include The Bastard of Istanbul (2006), The Forty Rules of Love (2011), Black Milk: On Writing, Motherhood and the Harem Within (2012), The House of the Four Winds (2013) and The Three Daughters of Eva (2017). In 2024 she published her novel There Are Rivers in the Sky, set on the shores of the Tigris and the Thames.
Naaz is an artist, singer-songwriter, producer and director. In 2017, Naaz shot to fame with tracks like Words and Up to Something, both now accounting for millions of streams. She released her debut EP Bits of Naaz in 2018, followed by the EP The Beautiful Struggle in 2019. In 2023, her debut album Never Have I Ever, was met with rave reviews. The record highlights her versatility with layered songwriting. Naaz makes contemporary, minimalist pop in which she uses Arabic influences and natural ambient sounds to deliver a sound that is very much her own and authentic. Naaz is currently working on new music, with releases of new songs in the next few months, and a new album scheduled for release autumn 2025! She is one of the four permanent club members of VPRO's Club Lees.
Willem 't Hart is a keyboard player, pianist and producer from Rotterdam. He grew up in a musical family, studied at the Utrechts Conservatorium and completed his education cum laude at the conservatoire (Codarts) in Rotterdam. As a keyboard player, Willem played with well-known artists such as Gregory Porter, Iris Hond and Naaz. Besides music, Willem also has a successful career in the fashion world. There, he worked with designers from top brands such as Prada, Dior and Gucci. In 2020, he decided to focus entirely on his passion for music, which resulted in the release of several EPs with a fine mix of electronica, pop and jazz.
Sophie Derkzen is a journalist and presenter with a fascination for international politics and culture. On Dutch national broadcaster NPO Radio 1 she presents Bureau Buitenland for VPRO, awarded the prestigious Silver Reiss Microphone for best radio programme of the year in 2022. She made the podcasts Stad in Oorlog: Charkiv een jaar onder vuur (City at War: Kharkiv one year under fire; winner Silver Reiss Microphone 2023) and Generatie Merkel (4**** in de Volkskrant).She previously wrote for major Dutch publications and was a guest editor at the German newspaper Die Zeit.
Elif Shafak - There are rivers in the sky is curated for Writers Unlimited Festival 2025 by Ilonka Reintjens.
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Captor and Captive
Power and powerlessness are rewarding themes in literature, drawn from extreme situations in history and real life. Emilienne Malfatto wrote the confrontational novel Le colonel ne dort pas (The Colonel Doesn't Sleep), about the power imbalance between a soldier and a prisoner, from the colonel's perspective. Burhan Sömnez wrote his novel Istanbul, Istanbul from the prisoner's perspective.
How do they portray this power imbalance, a per definition unequal situation of prisoner and guard? Both authors read an excerpt from their work and discussed power and powerlessness with Sophie Derkzen, host of a daily Radio 1 program for the VPRO broadcasting company.
Emilienne Malfatto is an award-winning photographer, journalist and writer. Her work deals with social, feminist and post-conflict issues in the Middle East, Latin Ameria and Europe. Her novel Le colonel ne dort pas (The Colonel Doesn't Sleep, 2021) brings to life three characters struggling with a war they cannot win.
Burhan Sönmez is a writer and board member of PEN International. His novels have been translated into 40 languages and won many awards. He became internationally known with his novel Istanbul, Istanbul, in which prisoners tell one another stories full of compassion and humour that are gradually more and more about life outside, in the city.
Festival tip: Emilienne Malfatto and Burhan Sönmez also appeared during Opening Night on 18 January 2024, and Malfatto again, together with Sacha Bronwasser, in the event Picture This during Saturday Night Unlimited (20 January 2024).
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Postponed: Eastern Europe and beyond
With: Lisa Weeda, Nino Haratischwili, Sophie Derkzen
Postponed due to measures against the coronavirus. We are exploring the possibility of presenting the program online or at a later point in time. We will inform you by our newsletter and social media.
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The Georgian-Ukrainian Connection: talking about family, roots and defining moments in history with the Hamburg-based Georgian writer Nino Haratischwili and Dutch-Ukrainian writer Lisa Weeda. Haratischwili had her breakthrough in 2014 with The Eight Life, in her latest novel The Cat and the General, she writes about the Chechen wars. In 2016 Petrovsky's Legs by Lisa Weeda was released, the literary reflection of two trips she made to and through Ukraine. Last year Weeda directed the VR production ROZSYPNE about the war zone in Ukraine. English spoken.Moderator: Sophie Derkzen
Program curated by Ilonka Reintjens (Writers Unlimited)
Books for sale courtesy of De Vries Van Stockum Books
