Viv Groskop
(United Kingdom) is an award-winning writer, comedian, broadcaster and performance coach. She is the author of the best-selling How to Own the Room: Women and the Art of Brilliant Speaking (2018), Lift As You Climb: Women and the Art of Ambition (2020)and Happy High Status: How to Be Effortlessly Confident (2023). Her podcast How to Own the Room is the biggest public speaking podcast in the world and features interviews with Hillary Clinton, Margaret Atwood, Professor Mary Beard and Julie Andrews. Her other books include The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature and Au Revoir, Tristesse: Lessons in Happiness from French Literature. She appears regularly on BBC TV and radio and for six years she did a run of sold-out one-woman comedy shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. As a columnist she writes regularly for the Guardian and the Financial Times.
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Archive available for: Viv Groskop
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The Flame of Freedom - Opening Writers Unlimited Festival 2025
With: Andrej Koerkov, Andrew Makkinga, Jan van Zanen, Judith Uyterlinde, Mamar, Mikaella Clements, Nelleke Noordervliet, Onjuli Datta, Rešoketšwe Manenzhe, Viv Groskop
The 30th edition of the Writers Unlimited International Literature Festival The Hague has the theme On Fire. Fire symbolises destructive forces such as war and global warming on the one hand, but also love and freedom on the other. Jan van Zanen, mayor of The Hague, will officially open the festival.
The opening night is dedicated to free speech, with a keynote speech by Ukraine's most important writer Andrei Kurkov, whose two new books have just been published in Dutch translation: the gripping war diary Our Daily War and the Kyiv-based historical thriller The Silver Bone.
Other speakers are author Nelleke Noordervliet, who will read a column and British author and stand-up comedian Viv Groskop who will represent PEN International, the writers' organisation dedicated to freedom of expression.
This programme is also a preview and kick-off of the 30th edition of the festival, with readings, music and talks. Dutch national broadcaster NPO Radio 1-programme Kunststof presenter Andrew Makkinga will interview writers who will also perform elsewhere in the festival:
South African author Rešoketšwe Manenzhe wrote Scatterlings, her first novel about a young family broken up by the law that criminalised interracial relationships. The New York Times wrote: "a novel that is at once exquisitely intimate and globally ambitious." Rešoketšwe will also perform at both grand festival evening programmes Friday and Saturday Night Unlimited.
Famous British author, stand-up comedian, podcast creator, TV and radio presenter Viv Groskop has written seven books and creates the podcast How to Own the Room, listened to millions of times, on topics including self-confidence, public speaking and dealing with stressful situations.
Onjuli Datta and her wife Mikaella Clements, who work and live in Berlin, co-authored the novels The View was Exhausting and Feast While You Can. They will read a fragment of their own work in the form of a dialogue.
Mamar, a formation of young musicians from Syria, Turkey, the US, Italy and the Netherlands provides musical contributions. The band members are Barış Ofluoğlu (double bass), Sebastiaan West (piano), Rita Brancato (drums), Talaf Fayad (ud) and Leah Uijterlinde (clarinet, vocals).
The programme includes the screening of the short film Monument for murdered writers and journalists 2024, a project by Theatre of Wrong Decisions, Committee To Protect Journalists (CPJ) and PEN International.
The Flame of Freedom - Opening Writers Unlimited Festival 2025 is curated by Ilonka Reintjens.
Festival tip 1: after the opening night programme, join us for the spoken word event Mensen Zeggen Dingen x Writers Unlimited Festival, at Paard (starts 21:30 hours): the literary afterparty with poetry, poetry slam, prose and punchlines by Palestinian-American poet George Abraham, Aruban spoken word artist and poet Rosabelle Illes and, from The Netherlands, Sabina Lukovic, Duimalot and Damaris. Host will be Dean Bowen.
Get a discount here by buying a reduced price ticket for Mensen Zeggen Dingen x Writers Unlimited Festival at the online Paard box office for only 5,- (regular price 10,-).Festival tip 2: Rešoketšwe Manenzhe, Viv Groskop, Onjuli Datta and Andrei Kurkov will also perform during the grand festival nights Friday and Saturday Night Unlimited: experience the full festival experience here and choose your own route along performances, readings, talks, music and films with many authors and artists from home and abroad on five stages of Theater aan het Spui and the adjacent Filmhuis Den Haag.
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Book of My Life: Viv Groskop in conversation with Abdelkader Benali
Writers tell us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Abdelkader Benali.
Viv Groskop chose as her favorite book Little Women, a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott. The story follows the lives of the four March sisters — Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy — and details their passage from childhood to womanhood. Little Women was adapted succesfully for film several times, recently in 20219 directed by Greta Gerwig featuring a.o. Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson and Timothée Chalamet.
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Humour and discomfort
Humour is delightful, popular and interesting. Because with humour, all kinds of discomfort can be laughed away. Books and poems are quite often uncomfortable. Writers, theatre makers and stage artists Joost Oomen and Viv Groskop - both very skilled at handling laughter - examine the role of humour and discomfort in literature in a conversation moderated by poet Ellen Deckwitz. English spoken.
Joost Oomen is a poet, writer, theatre-maker and drummer. His debut novel Het Perenlied (The Pear Song, 2022) is a "tender, joyful, optimistic and overwhelming story" (Tzum). Visjes: een avontuur op Salina (Small fish: an adventure on Salina, 2022) is both travelogue and paean to Italian islands. Lievegedicht (Dear Poem, 2023) his first collection of poetry, received - unusually for poetry - reprint after reprint. His novel Het paradijs van slapen (The Paradise of Sleeping, 2024) is about love, death, Friesland, Terschelling, art and euthanasia. Joost regularly recites poems in TV programmes; in his theatre performance Alle dichters hebben gouden helikopters (All poets have golden helicopters), he explained how poetry works through stories about poets and his own work. He is also one of the three founders of the instagram channel @poezieiseendaad.
Viv Groskop is a writer, stand up comedian, broadcaster and performance coach. She is the author of best-sellers as How to Own the Room: Women and the Art of Brilliant Speaking (2018) and Happy High Status: How to Be Effortlessly Confident (2023). Her podcast How to Own the Room is the biggest public speaking podcast in the world and features interviews with Hillary Clinton, Margaret Atwood and Julie Andrews. Her other books include The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature and Au Revoir, Tristesse: Lessons in Happiness from French Literature. She appears regularly on BBC TV and radio and for six years she did a run of sold-out one-woman comedy shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Ellen Deckwitz is a poet, columnist, critic and presenter at literary events, including Writers Unlimited. For De steen vreest mij (The stone fears me, 2011), she was awarded the C. Buddingh' Prize for the best poetry debut. Her collection Hogere natuurkunde (Higher physics, 2019) is part travelogue, part myth and part testimony, and the outcome of conversations Deckwitz engaged in with individuals whose roots also trace back to the former Dutch East Indies. In 2022, Eerste hulp bij poezie (First aid at poetry) was published, an omnibus containing her collections Olijven moet je leren lezen (Olives must be read, 2020) and Dit gaat niet over grasmaaien (This is not about lawn mowing, 2021). Deckwitz writes columns for national daily newspaper NRC. In her NPO Luister podcast Poezie vandaag, she presents a Dutch or translated poem every workday morning. She is one of three critics of podcast Boeken FM.
Humour and discomfort is curated for Writers Unlimited Festival 2025 by Ilonka Reintjens.
