Yael van der Wouden
(1987) is a writer and teacher of creative writing and comparative literature. Together with Daphne Huisden and Simone Atangana Bekono, she wrote the mosaic narrative Vlucht/Dans/Vondst (Flight/Dance/Finding, 2023). Her debut as a novelist The Safekeep (2024) is one of six books shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize. The Safekeep is set in the rural Dutch Overijssel province in the early 1960s. Isabel lives alone in her late mother's house, where everything quietly rolls along until her brother Louis shows up on her doorstep with his new girlfriend Eva to spend the summer with her. Eva is the opposite of Isabel in everything. Then little things start disappearing from the house. Feverishly, Isabel keeps an eye on the new woman, until, at the height of the sweltering hot summer, she makes a mysterious discovery that unravels all she has ever known.
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Archive available for: Yael van der Wouden
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Book of My Life: Yael van der Wouden 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.
Yael van der Wouden tells about In the Dream House (2019) by US author Carmen Maria Machado. In this memoir, Machado meets her on a weeknight: a dazzling smile, Carmen falls for this apparition like a log. They begin a relationship, but soon it takes a dark turn. To analyse the experiences and understand how they shaped her, she draws on numerous literary genres and pop culture. And in the midst of it all, there stands the dream house, the house where it happened, the symbol of what could have been and was not.
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Literary Heat - The Female Gaze
Erotica is often dismissed as a genre filled with stereotypes. Bouquet books with muscular men on the covers come to mind. Rarely, it is seen as an art form. Is this because erotic literature is inherently lacking, or is it because the open discussion of sexual desire, especially by women, is still considered taboo? English spoken.
Join authors Yael van der Wouden, Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta for an engaging discussion on what makes erotica powerful, how voices of women are reshaping the genre, and whether erotic stories deserve the status of literature with a capital L. The programme will open with a short video made for the occasion by famous reviewer and reading vlogger Leonie Dams. Host will be Jennifer Muntslag.
Yael van der Wouden is a writer and teacher of creative writing and comparative literature. Together with Daphne Huisden and Simone Atangana Bekono, she wrote the mosaic narrative Vlucht/Dans/Vondst (Flight/Dance/Finding, 2023). Her debut as a novelist The Safekeep (2024) is one of six books shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize. Yael is the first Dutch author to make the shortlist.
Onjuli Datta (UK) is the co-author of Feast While You Can, a queer horror-romance which the New York Times described as 'adventurous, exciting, fantastical and erotic', and of the novel The View Was Exhausting. Her writing has been featured in Salon, Reactor Magazine, Lithub, Autostraddle, Vulture and more. She lives in Berlin with her wife and co-author Mikaella Clements.
Mikaella Clements is an Australian writer currently based in Berlin. With her wife Onjuli Datta, she co-wrote Feast While You Can (2024), an 'exciting new hybrid horror-romance about queer love in a small town that serves as an unsettling reminder that the horrors of modern life are a monster ready to possess us all' (New York Times Book Review), as well as The View Was Exhausting. Her non-fiction has been published in the New York Times, Guardian, Washington Post, TLS, and many others. She has a Masters in English Studies from the Freie Universität Berlin.
Leonie Dams is a video creator, 'dweller of fictional worlds', makes reviews, reading vlogs and all sorts of other bookish, English spoken content that is viewed by many on her YouTube and Instagram platforms titled The Book Leo.
Jennifer Muntslag makes music, presents, sings, acts and leads workshops. She has presented events at Pakhuis De Zwijger, Kunstbende, Oerol, Amsterdam Roots Festival, spoken word nights, and was host/MC of events like Vieze Poezendek, Milkshake Festival, Kwaku and Into the Great Wide Open.
Reading tip: the essay The Best Queer Sex Scenes in Literature (2024, published by the digital publisher Electric Literature).Literary Heat - The Female Gaze is curated for Writers Unlimited Festival 2025 by Mojdeh Feili.
