A Mile in My Shoes

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Come to our "shoebox" in Zuiderparktheater, choose a pair of shoes in your size, and let yourself be surprised by the accompanying story! Walk a mile (about ten minutes) in the shoes of a fellow citizen of The Hague or from another city while you listen to his or her story via headphones. The stories are about hearth and home - they can be special Hague stories or a story about (not) feeling at home in the world, in your street, or in your own body.

A Mile in My Shoes is a unique art project about empathy by British artist Clare Patey (Empathy Museum). The shoebox is travelling around the world to give people the chance to walk "in someone else's shoes." For the Dutch premiere of this international hit, thirty brand-new Dutch-language and mostly Hague-related stories have been added to the collection in recent weeks. The project is a brilliant way to research how storytelling changes personal relationships and how the power of empathy helps remove prejudice and conflict. Because if you know someone else's story, how can you still reject them?

Come walk for ten minutes and listen to these special stories! Participation is free - no ticket or reservation necessary. English-language stories are also available. Please note: A Mile in My Shoes can get busy at times, so we are welcoming visitors during the day, as of noon. You can check the full schedule below. You will find the big shoebox in Zuiderparktheater in the Hague. Take public transit or come by bike.

The stories from The Hague were collected and recorded by: Alma Apt, Lex Bohlmeijer, Annemarie de Bruijn, Hasan Gök, Meltem Halaceli, Gerlinda Heywegen, Fleur Jeras, Joëlle Koorneef, Shantie Singh and Ellen Walraven.

A collaboration with De Betovering
Festival De Betovering heard about the "shoebox" and liked the idea so much that they joined in. They made it possible that stories of children between eight and sixteen years of age can also be heard (and walked).

Opening hours of A Mile in My Shoes Spuiplein
Thursday 9 June through Wednesday 15 June: 12:00-18:00 hrs.
Thursday 16 June through Saturday 18 June: 12:00-20:30 hrs.
Sunday 19 June: 12.00-18:00 hrs.

A Mile in My Shoes will move to the Zuiderparktheater on 20 June. So if you missed your chance on the Spuiplein, you can still catch it there between 22 June and 17 July.

Opening hours A Mile in My Shoes in Zuiderparktheater:
22 June - 17 July Wednesday afternoons and in the weekend*
Wednesdays: 13:00-16:00 hrs
Saturdays and Sundays: 12:00-16:00 hrs.

*Closed on Sunday 26 June.

Information

Date and time Sunday 17 July 2022 from 12:00 to 16:00 hrs
Location Zuiderparktheater
Price free admission

Line-up

Müesser Yeniay

(Turkey, 1984) is a writer, poet, journalist and literary translator. Her poetry has won several Turkish awards. Her books include Darkness Also Falls Ground (2009), I Founded My Home in the Mountains (translation), I Drew the Sky Again (2011), The Other Consciousness: Surrealism and The Second New (2013, on modern Turkish avant-garde poetry), Before Me There Were Deserts (2014), Modern Readings in Turkish Literature (2016), Permanent Talk with the Beloved (2017), and The Memory of Poetry: Writings on Poetics, Canon and Women (2018). She has translated the poetry of Behruz Kia, Ronny Someck, Attila F. Balazs, and Vietnamese poets Mai Van Phan and Nguyễn Quang Thiều. Her poetry has been translated and published in the USA (Mundus Artium Press, When I Slept in a Rose Petal), Hungary (AB-Art, A Rozsaszedes Szertartasa), France (Edition Bruno Doucey, Ainsi Disent-ils) India (Bodhi), Colombia (Silaba, Antes de mi Habia Desiertos), Spain (Edicion de Jaime B. Rosa, Poemas Selectos), Vietnam (Vietnam Writers’ Association, Nghi le Hai Hoa Hong Trong Vuon), Japan (Duet of Flame), and Portugal (Poesia a Sul, Conversa Permanente Com O Amado). She has been a writer-in-residence in the USA, Hong Kong and Belgium. Müesser is the editor of the literature magazine Şiirden (Of Poetry). She is currently pursuing a PhD in Turkish literature at Bilkent University in Ankara.
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Elianne van Elderen

(1997) graduated in Creative Writing from ArtEZ with the collection Geef geen namen aan koeien die je van plan bent te slachten (Don't Name Cows That You Plan to Slaughter). The volume consists of poems, fragments, short stories, catalogues, route descriptions and lists. While she mainly writes poetry and short stories (about children who murder their guinea pigs, glow-in-the-dark minigolf courses, the time she tried to draw Stephen Hawking on someone's plaster cast, and bike rides along the meat-processing plant in her native village in Brabant), she also experiments with combining text, image and other art forms. She researched whether it is possible to teach yourself to be obsessive, for which she spent 80 hours embroidering a text on a tent, resulting in an art installation that was exhibited at a poetry event. She also regularly appears on (literary) stages at festivals and events throughout the Netherlands. In 2020 she came in second in Write Now! and third in De (Turing) Poetry Contest.
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Aafke Romeijn

(Netherlands, 1986) is a successful musician, author and journalist. She debuted as a novelist with Concept M (2018). This well-received sci-fi novel takes place in the Netherlands in 2020. A young woman makes sense in a surprising way of her condition of colourlessness, a chronic disease that has grown to epidemic proportions in Europe. She radicalizes and ends up in an organization that carries out attacks. Romeijn has performed as a pop-music artist at festivals such as Lowlands and Noorderslag. With her beats, razor-sharp lyrics and analog synthesizers, she's the uncrowned queen of Dutch-language electropop. Her album M, the soundtrack to her novel and her first self-produced record, was released in 2019, followed in 2020 by her debut poetry collection Leegstand (Vacancy). In 2021 she released the album Godzilla and published 7B, another sci-fi novel set in the year 2040 in Groningen, where military personnel train in a huge complex for a war over natural resources.
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Agustina Bazterrica

(Argentina, 1974) won the important Premio Clarín Novela in 2017 for her second novel, Cadáver Exquisito (translated into English as Tender Is the Flesh). The jury unanimously chose her book from 494 submitted manuscripts. It's a dystopian novel about Marcos Tejo, manager of a large meat-processing plant at a time when animal flesh is unfit for consumption because of a virus. He's one of few people who can recall that meat once came from cows, pigs and poultry. Marcos grieves for his dead son and the departure of his wife, cares for his sick father and is almost on a war footing with his sister. The day comes when he receives a living gift from a meat supplier. Tender Is the Flesh is about grief and dehumanization and offers surprisingly credible and gruesome solutions to pressing global problems. Bazterrica's novel paints a mercilessly critical and chilling picture of a morally bankrupt society.


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Pola Oloixarac

(Argentina, 1977) writes fiction and essays and is a translator and blogger. She studied philosophy at the university in Buenos Aires and was selected in 2010 as one of the best young Spanish-language authors by Granta magazine. Her books often tackle themes such as fear and violence, war, sex, eroticism, drug use and philosophy. Her debut, Las teorías salvajes (2008; English translation Savage Theories), is an extreme and satirical portrait of the Buenos Aires university bubble in which complex personalities wrangle with a mess of visionary theories, seeking their place in the fragmented digital world. Las constelaciones oscuras (Dark Constellations, 2015) is a novel that races from the era of 19th-century science to an ultra-surveilled near future. In Mona (2019), success takes a dark turn for a young Latin American woman during a literary festival in Sweden. The novel employs gothic elements to deal with sexuality, sensuality and violence against women, with dead animals and mysterious men in black making appearances.





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Roanne van Voorst

(Utrecht, 1983) is a dr. in anthropology, writer, investigative journalist, (TEDx) speaker and university lecturer. She has written seven books, both fiction and non-fiction. Her latest book, Six in Bed, explores the future of love and friendship. Her work has been translated into several languages ​​and some of her books are published internationally. As an 'anthropologist of the future', her research focuses on what a sustainable and desirable future of our world could be. She mainly thinks about what she calls 'sustainable humanity': how do we keep hope in an era characterized by climate change and 'fake news'? What keeps us human, in times of robotization? Will we soon fall in love with robots, dine with avatars, and leave our work tasks to algorithms? What is the effect of this on our society, and on our individual happiness and well-being? And which skills do we need to teach ourselves in order to remain successful, both humanly and professionally, in a high-tech future?
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Lex Bohlmeijer

(Oost-Souburg, NL, 1959) studied Dutch and Literary Theory in Leiden. He spent several years as a professional dancer. Later he developed into a versatile radio-maker at the NCRV broadcaster, including the successful "Casa Luna" programme. He now hosts two programmes on Radio 4: "Passaggio" (weekdays at 7 p.m.) and the talk show "Diskotabel." He also works in theatre as a dramaturge and writer. He is increasingly active as a presenter of concerts, conferences and debates. Every Saturday, he publishes an interview with an inspiring special guest in De Correspondent online daily.
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Nisrine Mbarki

(The Netherlands, 1977) is a writer, poet, columnist and literary translator. She writes short stories, theatre scripts and poetry, and translates poetry from Arabic into Dutch. Her poems and columns regularly appear in Dutch literary magazines. She has appeared at festivals such as Poetry International, Globale in Bremen, Writers Unlimited, Read My World, the Felix Poetry Festival in Antwerp, and the Nacht van de Poëzie (Night of Poetry). She is co-founder and artistic director of the theatre company Landgenoten, for which she wrote Club Paradis (2016), which was staged in the Netherlands and Germany. Her debut poetry collection oeverloos (Endless) was published in 2022.
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Meltem Halaceli

is a writer, feminist and programmer with a special interest in the Middle-East. Halaceli works as project manager for inclusivity at the University of Amsterdam and as a programmer for the Winternachten International Literature Festival The Hague. Her debut De vergeten geschiedenis van mijn grootvader Sulayman Hadj Ali (The Forgotten History of My Grandfather Sulayman Hadj Ali, 2015) deals with the discovery of her grandfather's memoirs. The book tells about her search for his life story, which ended in the First World War period, when he was a conscripted soldier - an era with direct influence on the present. Her poem Moederhuis (Motherhouse) won the El Hizjra Literature Prize. Halaceli has worked as a researcher and interpreter for various prominent programs of the Dutch national broadcaster VPRO. She is working on her second book.
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Gerlinda Heywegen

(1968) is a programmer, writer, organizer, lecturer and podcaster, mainly on the subject of film and often in combination with literature. Koning Film is the collective of speakers on film that she established. Heywegen's books include The Other Director, about directors of photography; she collaborated with Frans Westra on Passie voor Cinema (Passion for Cinema), which highlights four decades of film screenings in the Netherlands; and she edited and wrote for the film magazine Skrien. Currently, she writes regularly for the websites of the Netherlands Society of Cinematographers and literary magazine Elders.
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Diann van Faassen

(The Netherlands) is a poet. writing teacher, city guide and programme maker from The Hague. She gives poetry and performance workshops at schools and cultural organisations. Diann's work has been included in various anthologies and often has a link to the city of The Hague. In the time that remains, she takes you as a city guide on a poetic tour of The Hague, providing the most beautiful spots with surprising stories. For the Writers Unlimited, she guides pupils from schools in The Hague at the educational initiative De Stem van de Stad (The Voice of the City). Diann walks with pupils through The Hague and tells stories. She inspires them to write a Very Short Story about their vision of and connection with the city. Diann then introduces the pupils at their performance in the festival.

Instagram @diannvanfaassen
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Iman Mersal

(Egypt, 1966) studied at Mansura University and was co-founder and editor of the feminist magazine Bint al-Ard (Daughter of the Earth). She is one of Arab world's most acclaimed contemporary writers and a professor of Arabian literature in Canada. These Are Not Oranges, My Love (2008), is a selection of her English-language poems; her poetry has also been translated into other languages. In How to Mend: On motherhood and its ghosts (2016) she tells a new story of motherhood, switching between diary fragments, readings and photos in order to question old and new conceptions of motherhood and the unconditional love, guilt, personal goals and traditional expectations that come with it. These stories show that we are greater than our individual experiences, sorrows, worries and fears, and that they are hardly unique. She published Home, New Arabic Poems in 2020.
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Ronelda S. Kamfer

(South Africa, 1981) is one of today's most important South African authors. She writes in Cape-Afrikaans, a spoken language containing English words and slang. Her work has been translated into Dutch, French, Greek, Italian and English. Her first poetry collection Noudat Slapende Honde (Now Then Sleeping Dogs, 2008) paints a sharp picture of poverty. Santekraam (2012) contains stories in verse about a fishing village that must make way for a military site. Mammie (2017) is a loving as well as raw ode to her mother. Chinatown (2021) is typically hard-hitting. Kamfer's poems, as controlled as they are intimate and darkly humourous, tackle violence, the position of women, love and parenthood. Her first novel, Kompoun, was published in 2021. She compiled Die maan is swart (The Moon is Black, 2022), a collection of poetry by Adam Small, and has translated two of Kirsty Applebaum's Princess Minna children's books into Afrikaans.
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Athena Farrokhzad

(Iran, 1983) is a Swedish poet, playwright, translator, literary critic and feminist. Her family escaped Iran in the eighties. She is an important voice in Scandinavian societal debate. Her debut collection Vitsvit (2013) was an international success and translated into 12 languages (into English as White Blight). It gives a voice to several members of a refugee family and shows how themes such as migration, integration, racism, revolution and war influence their lives. Farrokhzad also published two anthologies, Manualen with Tova Gerrge and Ett tunt underlag with the poetry group G=T=B=R=G, both in 2009. She was editor of the queer poetry collection Omslag with Linn Hansén and organized literary events such as Queerlitt, Demafor and World Poetry Day. The collection Trado, which she wrote with the Romanian poet Svetlana Cârstean, was published in 2016, followed by the collection I rörelse in 2019. She is also the literary critic of the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.
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Widad Broco

(1983) was born in Morocco and has lived in the the city of Perpignan in the south of France since 2002. Together with Walid Ben Salim she forms the special musical duo N3rdistan. Inspired by everything from (ancient) Arabic poetry to Massive Attack and Portishead, this republic of nerds offers a wonderful mix of sometimes unsettling texts in English and Arabic, rap, electro, mysterious song and compelling rythms. She is seen as one of the first femal Arabic rappers. These pioneers of Moroccan hiphop and alternative music have performed in Morocco, France, Lebanon, Cape Verde, Dubai, Canada and Estonia. The first eponymous album appeared in 2019.
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Ilonka Reintjens

is a producer and project coordinator for literary events. Before this, she worked as publisher and editor at various publishing houses. She currently is business and artistic leader of the literary festival Meet Me at the Lighthouse on the Dutch island Schiermonnikoog, and for Writers Unlimited as a program coordinator and curator for the Writers Unlimited international literary festival The Hague and the monthly Writers Series.
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Annemarie de Bruijn

(1980) is an actress and co-founder and artistic director of Het Vijfde Bedrijf, a theatre collective based in The Hague. Besides performing and producing her solo performances (Lady M, The Imromptus, Cassandra and Lost in Denmark) she works as a freelance director and instructor on various projects.
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Neske Beks

(Belgium, 1972) is a writer, transdisciplinary artist and a film and theatre maker. She debuted with De Kleenex Kronieken (The Kleenex Chronicles, 2014), a family and village chronicle featuring Priscilla, the daughter of a Flemish father and a Senegalese mother. She published the children's book Sala & Monk in 2020. In Echo - essays, speeches en brieven (Echo - essays, speeches and letters, 2021), named after the poem Echoes by Audre Lorde, she places her finger on a sore spot. Not only is the white gaze still dominant in our society, Black women are doubly disadvantaged: they aren't white and they aren't men. Beks shows how systematic is not to be seen or heard. Her essay De kleine Morrison: een wegwijzer in het lezen van haar werk vanuit Zwart perspectief (The Little Morrison: A Signpost to Reading Her Work from a Black Perspective, 2023) offers readers of Toni Morrison, the most famous female black writer and Nobel Prize for Literature winner who died in 2019, insight into her life and work. Beks shows that in everything she does, Morrison invites self-critical reflection on language, structure, power, gender, race, law and injustice, blackness, the white gaze and the meaning of oral and written narratives.
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Manon Uphoff

(The Netherlands, 1962) is a Dutch writer, screenwriter and visual artist. She made her debut in 1995 with the collection of short stories Begeerte (Desire), which was nominated for the AKO Literature Prize, the Anton Wachter Prize and the ECI Prize. The title story was awarded the Rabobank Spring Prize for Literature. Her first novel Gemis (1997) was nominated for the Libris Literature Prize. Her most recent book, Vallen is als vliegen (Falling is Like Flying, 2019), was shortlisted for both the 2019 Bookspot Literature Prize and the 2020 Libris Literature Prize. The novel was named the best Dutch-language novel of 2019 by NRC Handelsblad and Humo. Uphoff was editor of the literary magazine De Revisor and board member and president of PEN Netherlands. As a screenwriter, she wrote the feature film screenplay Een Groot Geweld (Topkapi Films).
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Shantie Singh

(The Netherlands, 1982) is an author, program maker, and moderator. Themes such as identity, diversity, women's rights, and emancipation are often central to her work. Her background is layered and connected to three continents in the countries of India, Suriname, and The Netherlands. She wrote about this in her debut novel Vervoering. This was followed by the novel De kier. In 2024, her non-fiction book Na de komma – Hindostanen en de erfenis van het kolonialisme (After the Comma – Hindustani People and the Legacy of Colonialism) was published, her plea for greater recognition and visibility of the Hindustani story in the Netherlands. This book inspired her theatre production Her (s)tories (2024-2025), an ode to the women from Hindustani migration history. In her De Dolle Kavita Talkshow, Shantie welcomes trailblazers (women, men, or anything in between) with a story that needs to be heard. She is also a member of the feministic writers collective Fixdit.

Go to the website of Shantie Singh
Instagram: @shantie.singh1
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Hasan Gök

is a poet, spoken word artist and host. From his emotional world, he shares, vulnerably and sincerely, a social message that is often invisible. Stories about a diversity of worlds that converge in his own life: son of a Turkish father and a Kurdish mother, raised in Dutch society, queer and Muslim, lover of both the spotlights of the stage and the silence of the night. Hasan knows how to turn the search for a place in society into words and performances that confront but also invite. He feels a need to connect people and therefore shares human feelings and experiences that are often recognisable and yet remain unexpressed with sincere, unabashed, poetic and intimate work.
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Rachida Lamrabet

(Morocco, 1970) is a fiction and theatre author, lawyer and teacher. She won the 2008 Flemish debut prize for her novel Vrouwland (Women's Country; 2007) about migrant youths dreaming of a better life. In 2006, her story Mercedes 207 was awarded the Kif Kif Literature Prize. Her short story collection Een kind van God (A Child of God) was published in 2008, followed by the novel De man die niet begraven wilde worden (The Man Who Didn't Want to be Buried), awarded with the Ultima, the Flemish state prize for culture. As in her debut, issues such as identity, religion, migration and the position of minorities play an important role. Her novel Vertel het iemand (Tell Somebody, 2018) deals with the life of a Berber boy and the deliberately concealed role played by Moroccan soldiers in the First World War. Lamrabet is a member of the writers' collective Fixdit, which aims to raise awareness of gender inequality in literature. She is a practice assistant in discrimination law at the Legal Clinic of the Law Faculty of the Ghent University and also teaches at the Odisee College in Brussels.
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Robin Block

(The Netherlands, 1980) is a poet and musician. His performances combine language, music and the bodily. Following his roots and family history, much of his work is related to the colonial past of the Netherlands and Indonesia, as well as the topics of belonging and displacement. His last poetry collection Handbook for the Displaced was awarded the Herman de Coninck prize and the J.C. Bloem poetry prize, and was translated into English and Indonesian. Several of his poems were screened in Manual for the Displaced, a poetry film project together with cinematographer Jeremy Flohr. Block also writes columns, teaches poetry and works as an editor for Dutch poetry magazine Awater.

Go to the website of Robin Block
Instagram: @robinblock
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Gwen Stok

(Netherlands, 1983) studied at the Willem de Kooning Academy and creates illustrations and comics that provide insight into human nature with philosophical playfulness. She has been published in various magazines and turned Toon Tellegen's animal stories Een Verre Reis (A Long Journey, 2017) into an app of the same title and De Genezing van de Krekel (The Healing of the Cricket, 2019) into a graphic novel. The app won two Lovie Awards, a Gold Guppy and a Special Mention at the Bologna Ragazzi Digital Award. During the pandemic, the City Archive and Centre for Visual Arts of Rotterdam named her "special city artist" for her depiction of developments during the winter lockdown: the repetitiveness, isolation and powerlessness, but also the increasing amount of postal workers bearing mounds of packages, and bike couriers. In Memoir of a Jellyfish (2021), Stok investigates what happens when gravity disappears and the path of existence is no longer linear. The result is a picture story in the form of A5-sized cards with an augmented-reality layer. Together with Bruno Ferro Xavier da Silva she also creates ink and wall drawings under the name Trompette de la Mort.
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Rebecca Solnit

(USA, 1961) is an art critic, cultural historian, political activist and author of more than 20 highly acclaimed books. She is one of the most important thinkers on the subjects of feminism, climate, art and politics. Her work is translated worldwide and has won many prizes. "I am an abused child, having grown up in a violent household in which everything female was hated," she said in a 2014 interview with Rookiemag.com. In the same year, her collection of essays Men Explain Things to Me was published. In The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness (2017), the essay "Climate Change and Violence" argues that climate change is a form of violence toward the world's population. Other well-known and translated works include Wanderlust (2000), The Mother of All Questions (2017) and Whose Story is This? (2020). In 2020 she also published Recollections of My Non-Existence, dealing with her experiences as a writer and feminist in the San Fransisco in the eighties, a society characterized by violence against and the exclusion of women.


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Elten Kiene

is spoken-word artist, host, organizer, rapper and workshop teacher. He was a member of hip hop collective Brandwerk and is co-founder and co-organizer Woorden Worden Zinnen (Words Become Sentences), a platform for word art in the broadest sense. As a spoken-word artist, Elten has performed on many stages; in his workshops, Elten prefers to teach young people in secondary school or debuting authors with performance ambitions. Bringing together separate worlds, with word art as the most important aspect, is a recurring theme in all his activities. He likes to share his knowledge and experience and, most crucially, this "professional hobbyist" is always up for a new challenge in the many roles he is able to take on. In 2020 he was awarded the South Holland Culture Prize.
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Chris Keulemans

(Tunisia, 1960) is a writer, essayist, traveller and popular panel moderator. He has published fiction and non-fiction; was the director of the debating platform and venue De Balie; and was founder of the literary bookshop Perdu and the cultural centre De Tolhuistuin (all in Amsterdam). He performed with Enkidu Khaled in their jointly created documentary play Bagdad. Due to his curiosity about how artists recreate their cities after a crisis, he travelled to Sarajevo, Beirut, Tirana, Algiers, New York, Kiev, Jakarta and Qamishlo. At the invitation of PAX, he wrote Srebrenica & PAX 1995-2020, an overview of 25 years of support to the Association of Women of Srebrenica by the IKV and PAX in response to the genocide in Bosnia. In 2021 he published Gastvrijheid (Hospitality), in which he explores the art of hospitality through a mix of travel stories, observations, memories and imagery.
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Walid Ben Selim

(Casablanca, 1984), is a humanist singer and composer in multiple forms, in love with poetry to which he dedicates his artistic career. He was raised by his mother, a lawyer committed to social causes and left-wing activist, who was both his reference and his support in his passion for music and who enrolled him at the age of 6 at the Conservatory of Casablanca. He left Morocco in 2002, after having been one of the founders of the "Nayda" movement, to join France where he continues his studies and his passion. Walid Ben Salim is also the lead singer/rapper of hiphop band N3rdistan, building bridges between the Arabic world and the West.
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Rachel Cusk

(Canada, 1967) has written more than ten novels, including the Outline trilogy (Outline, Transit and Kudos), and four non-fiction works, including Coventry: Essays. In 2021 Second Place was published, a dark, bittersweet novel that was also widely acclaimed and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. "Cusk has emerged as a writer to be afraid of," said Marja Pruis in De Groene Amsterdammer. "As she gets older, she puts both literature and herself on edge." Cusk writes with raw honesty about motherhood, femininity, and her own marriage and divorce. Her work has won many prizes, and in 2003 Granta chose her as one of the Best Young British Novelists. Cusk lives in Londen and Norfolk.
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Niña Weijers

(Netherlands, 1987) is the author of the novels De consequenties (Consequences, 2014) and kamers antikamers (Rooms Anti-Rooms, 2019, nominated for the bng Bank Literature Prize). Her debut was nominated for the 2015 Libris Literature Prize and won the Anton Wachter Prize, the Lucy B. and C.W. van der Hoogt Prize, the Opzij Literature Prize, and the audience award of the Gouden Boekenuil. Translations of her novels have appeared in Germany, France, the Czech Republic and the United States. She has written for the Dutch weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdammer since 2014 and is an editor at Dutch literary magazine De Gids. Her book Zelf doen (Do It Myself, 2022) is a collection of essays written for De Groene. Published in 2023, Cassandra is about how disruptive a never-solved disappearance can be for everyone involved.
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Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

(USA, 1991) is seen as an important new voice in American literature: that of new black surrealism. His debut  collection Friday Black won many prizes and is a raw, surrealist and partly satirical book with twelve short stories that denounce the excesses of racism and today's consumer society. Five unarmed black teenagers are murdered in cold blood by a white family man who feels "threatened" by them - and who is acquitted; an amusement park employee does his makeup for yet another day as scapegoat and target of the racist fantasies of the mostly white visitors; and a salesperson in a shopping mall prepares for the Black Friday sales and the expected hordes of zombie-like, violent bargain hunters. Adjei-Brenyah's stories are extreme and disturbing, but at the same time sketch a nearly-here future and show how people desperately want to belong to a society, but that this society is not ready to accept just anyone. A Dutch translation with the same title was published in 2019.
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Annelies Verbeke

(Belgium, 1976) writes novels, film scripts and plays. Her debut novel Slaap! (Sleep!) was published in 2003, followed by three novels (Reus, Vissen redden, Dertig dagen); four collections of short stories; a collection of journalism pieces, Wakker (Awake, together with photographer Charlie De Keersmaecker); and the graphic novella Tirol Inferno, written in iambic pentameter and rhyme and co-created with illustrator Klaas Verplancke. Her work has been translated into 26 languages and won various prizes, such as the F. Bordewijk Prize, the Opzij Literature Prize, the J.M.A. Biesheuvel Prize, and the NRC Handelsblad Readers Prize. She has also written several plays and film scripts, and worked with various theatre companies, especially Rotterdam-based Wunderbaum. In 2023, she published short stories in Koude soep (Cold Soup) and JIJ (You), an anthology of you-stories. January 2024 will see the premiere of Wunderbaum speel live (online gaat het mis), a theatre production by Wunderbaum with a stage text by Annelies Verbeke.
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Jannah Loontjens

(1974) is a writer and philosopher. She grew up in the Netherlands and Sweden and has published four novels as well as poetry and essay collections. Her novel Schuldig: Een verkenning van mijn geweten (Guilty: An exploration of my conscience, 2020) is an essayistic and philosophial confession and personal quest for the origin of her feelings of guilt. Loontjens is a member of the writers' collective Fixdit, which aims to increase diversity in the literary world. By way of podcasts, essays, open letters and conversations, Fixdit wants the raise awareness of gender inequality in the world of letters and expand the canon with work by important female authors. She also writes opinion pieces for Dutch newspspers and a column for Filosofie Magazine, in which she discusses philosophers that influenced her thinking and writing. She reviews poetry for Awater. Besides her writerly activities, Loontjens has taught philosophy and literary analysis at Dutch universities and  arts institutes.
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Raoul de Jong

(Rotterdam, 1984) writes novels, literary nonfiction and essays in a.o. news media Vrij Nederland, Het Parool and NRC Handelsblad. For his novel Stinknegers (2006), in which the main character travels solo through West Africa, he received the Dick Scherpenzeel Prize. He also published, among others, Het leven is verschrikkulluk (2005), It's Amaaazing (2006), Miracoloso (2008), De grootsheid van het al (2013) and Dagboek van een puber (2018). In Jaguarman; Mijn vader, zijn vader en andere Surinaamse helden (2020). a mix of fiction, nonfiction and travelogue, he speaks to archaeologists, dance teachers and winti priests in Suriname, and gets to know Surinamese writers, thinkers and resistance heroes such as Anton de Kom, Papa Koenders and Bram Behr. He received the Anna Blaman Prize in 2022 for his entire oeuvre. His Boekenweekessay Boto Banja of het geheime genootschap der dansende schrijvers (Boto Banja, or: the secret society of the dancing writers) was published in 2023.
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Sanem Kalfa

Sanem Kalfa is a singer, improviser, composer, cello player based in Amsterdam. She was born in Trabzon, a city on the Black Sea coast of northeast Turkey. Kalfa unites both her background as a cello player - the instrument with which Sanem started her musical education - and the vast vocabulary she developed throughout the years as a vocalist and improviser. The result is a unique sound that expresses all the diversity of Kalfa's musical vision. Sanem Kalfa is known for her broadly developed voice, her singing combination into a powerful blend of emotions. In her singing career she won several awards, including the 1st Prize Shure Montreux Jazz Vocal Competition presided by Quincy Jones. In 2014 she released her debut album “Nehir”. She released her second album “DANCE” as a duo with George Dumitriu in May 2018. Her last album with George Dumitriu and Joachim Badenhorst, “Black Sea Songs”, was brought out in 2021. She has taken part in over 10 other releases as a side woman. She also performed in many important festivals and venues in the Netherlands and Europe.
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Elfie Tromp

(Netherlands, 1985) is a writer, presenter and performer. Following on her debut novel Goeroe (Guru, 2013), Underdog (2016) was nominated for the BNG Literature Prize and the Dioraphte Literature Prize. Her poetry debut Victorieverdriet (Victory Sadness) was published in 2017. Her most recent novel Pieta (2021) is a compelling mosaic-style story about a city under pressure. Tromp has written for various Dutch magazines and newspapers. She can also be found on stage, appearing in her own productions, including Monster Love Play and the musical-theatre horror show Niet vandaag Satan (maar wel vanavond) (Not Today, Satan, but Tonight Is Okay). On Instagram, she presents the weekly Dichter in Drag (Poet in Drag) show, where poetry and glitter, poets and drag queens meet for a half hour of reading and make-up.
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Laura van Dolron

(Netherlands, 1976) expresses her idealistic self as a writer, theatre producer, director, performer and "action writer." She created her own theatrical category: stand-up philosophy. She doesn't make theatre about a better world, but makes a better world within the theatre. Van Dolron writes almost all of her own plays, and the scripts of Liefhebben (Loving) and WIJ (WE) have been published in book form. She often performs alone on stage, and sometimes with other actors. She also directs theatre performances. Since 2015 Van Dolron has performed as an "action writer," as well. At various gatherings, from theatre festivals to police workshops, she reflects live on what she observes and, with an outsider's gaze, sums up the event in clever and funny language.
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Jens van Tricht

(1969) studied women's studies at the University of Amsterdam. He specializes in men and masculinity: academically, personally, professionally and through activism. He is the founder and director of Emancipator, an organization that promotes men's emancipation. In his words: "I am an idealist, an anarchist and a feminist. I believe in a better world. And I believe that all of us must strive to achieve this." His book Waarom feminisme goed is voor mannen (Why Feminism is Good for Men, 2018) argues for the emancipation of both women and men. According to him, "real men" still feel the need to be tough, self-confident, strong and independent. The must work hard, and never cry and nor show any vulnerability. It prevents many men from fully being themselves, which also has destructive consequences on a societal level. In this book, Van Tricht defends everyone's freedom to break free of restrictive expectations and to use all their talents.

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Çiler Ilhan

(Turkey, 1972) writes novels, essays, reviews and translations for various newspapers and magazines. She studied international relations and political science in Istanbul and hotel management in Switzerland. In 2006 she debuted with the short-story collection Ruya Tacirleri Odasi (Chamber of Dream Merchants). Surgun (Exile, 2010) won the EU Literature Prize and was published in 24 countries. Its short stories - some of which are only a page or two in length -  form a novel in which ordinary Turkish citizens speak about feeling alienated from their homeland, their families, and the community to which they belonged. In 2021 she published Nisan Evi (Engagement), a novella about lives lost under the weight of power factors in eastern Turkey.
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Sayonara Stutgard

(Netherlands, 1988) writes poetry and short stories. She studied Dutch language and literature and lives, as she herself says, mostly in her own library, although she also regularly works in the Utrecht Library. "There is an acute shortage of topical literature that does justice to the diversity of the Netherlands. To ensure that all readers can recognize themselves, the book trade must seek out a balance of stories," she wrote in a Dutch newspaper column. She co-founded the intersectional, feminist publishing house Chaos, which strives to bring more diversity to the Dutch literary scene. She also works as an editor and completed her first translation of a picture book (De binnenkant van mij - original title Skin Again - by bell hooks, published by ROSE stories). Stutgard's work has appeared on Cipher Magazine and Samplekanon, in the magazine nY and, of course, with Chaos publishers.
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Gamal Fouad

(Egypt, 1976) is a writer and, together with Claire Fons, forms the visual artist duo Felix & Mumford. They have exhibited in Berlin and Bologna, and their work was acquired for the collection of the Centraal Museum Utrecht. His first book Oneindig eiland (Infinite Island) was published in 2016, a hilarious novel about a man who gets invited to teach a writing course on a tropical island, even though he’s never been published himself. Fouad evokes the atmosphere on the island with masterly precision, and is deftly comic in telling the story of the teacher and participants. His second work De voorhuidenverzamelaar (The Foreskin Collector, 2018) was nominated for the Biesheuvel Award for best short stories. Fouad draws on his own youth in Alexandria as well as his experiences as an artist in Berlin for his stories. Fouad works highly associatively to create these symbolic narratives populated by archetypes.
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Yentl van Stokkum

(1991) used to be a high-school art teacher; now she writes theatre scripts, audio plays, poetry and essays. In 2017 she graduated in Writing for Performance from the Utrecht Art Academy, after which she was selected for the Slow Writing Lab talent-development program of the Dutch Literature Foundation. She edits and writes for Dutch literary publications and is developing a project with the De Nieuwe Oost | Wintertuin production company. Van Stokkum has appeared at various Dutch festivals. She also contributed to the 2018 anthology NYX: berichten uit de nacht (NYX: Dispatches from the night) and was nominated for the 2019 BNG Bank Theatre Prize for her written performance Chimo zei Lila (Lila said Chimo). Van Stokkum's debut collection Ik zeg Emily (I Say Emily), about the life and work of the English writer Emily Brontë, was published in 2021; it straddles poetry, narrative prose and seance. In the same year she received the C.C.S. Crone stipend.


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Zawdie Sandvliet

is a social studies lecturer at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. He also teaches Afro-Dutch studies at the University of Amsterdam and at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. In search of knowledge about the history of Dutch involvement in the system of slavery and trade in enslaved Africans, Sandvliet began studying African American Studies at Boston University with a Fulbright Scholarship. Upon returning to the Netherlands, he took the initiative to set up an Afro-Dutch studies course within the University of Amsterdam. This course is decolonial, interdisciplinary, and focuses on the history and contemporary reality of Afro-Dutch people. As a trainer of teachers and through these Afro-Dutch Studies, Zawdie tries to realize educational equality within class, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality and gender. In his free time, Zawdie enjoys reading, longboarding, sports and vegan cooking.

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Vampire Boyfriend

writes songs about “blood, sex and satanic self-care rituals,” according to Janine van Osta, founder of this Dutch/Flemish band. Vampire Boyfriend packs together contrasting elements with infectious irreverence: the pink glitter notebook with boyband stickers and the Book of the Dead are both part of the inventory. These sweet and dark elements are condensed into self-assured, frayed indie songs of an unvarnished nature. “My thirteen-year-old, Green Day-listening goth-kid self is really happy with what I'm doing now. As is my six-year-old princess dress-wearing, ABBA-listening self." With Mitchell Quitz, Arno Geers and Sophie Reekers in the ranks, Vampire Boyfriend explores the fringes, lacing together fictional horror-kitsch storytelling and autobiographical beats with a coy sense of humor.
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Sanneke van Hassel

(Netherlands, 1971) wrote six collections of short stories, inluding 2019's Nederzettingen (Settlements), as well as the novels Nest (2010) and Stille grond (Silent Ground, 2017). She won the 2008 BNG New Literature Prize for her early work and the 2013 Anna Blaman Prize for her oevre. Van Hassel also writes non-fiction and is a strong promotor of the short story genre; together with Annelies Verbeke she compiled the short-story anthology Naar de stad (Toward the City, 2012). Both her novels and short stories describe people struggling to get a grip on their lives. Van Hassel studied drama and cultural history, was a dramaturge with theatre company ’t Barre Land from 1996-2006, and is a member of the writers' collective Fixdit, which aims to raise awareness of gender inequality in literature and expand the literary canon with work by important female authors.

Go to website Sanneke van Hassel
Instagram: @sannekevanhassel
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Linda Duits

(Netherlands, 1976) is a social scientist specializing in popular culture. Within her field she is interested in the interplay between media, meaning and identity. She regularly appears in the media as an expert to interpret developments in media culture, often with a focus on gender, sex and identity, and teaches at various educational institutions. She has also published three books: Meisjes Kijken (2013), Dolle Mythes (2017) and Eindelijk Weten Wat Seks Is (2020). Linda Duits also regularly writes columns and creates podcasts such as Onder Mediadoctoren (Among Media Doctors) and Geeky Things.
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Sherida Kuffour

is a graphic designer, art director and writer. She has a BA in Graphic Design (Ravensbourne University London) and an MA in Design for Visual Strategies (Sandberg Institute Amsterdam), and lives and works in Zurich. She often seeks out collaborations with other creatives from the fashion, fine art, culture and media sectors. She was art director and editor of various issues of New African Woman magazine. Besides working for her design studio, she keeps busy writing about issues of race, feminism and design. Kuffour appears in the multimedia exhibit Facing Blackness of The Black Archives in Amsterdam, which deals with the underexposed history of the Dutch image formation about black people from the colonial period to contemporary society.


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Boekencurator

If there's one thing that Corina Maduro has adored her whole life and can't stop talking about, it's reading. As book curator she offers tips about books via social media, podcasts and newsletters. She also regularly organizes book clubs.


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Corinne Heyrman

(Belgium, 1994) is a writer, theatre and podcast maker and one of two City Writers of Eindhoven. Corinne directed the plays Toen mijn vader nog een gastarbeider was (2019) and The Pink Sheep of the Family (2022) for Het Zuidelijk Toneel. As a podcast maker, she contributes to Radio Kras, De Bijsluiter, and Drie uur 's nachts. In her debut novel Het begin en zijn oneindigheid (The Beginning and Its Infinity, 2022), Marcel ends up with a depression in the psychiatric hospital where his granddaughter also stayed years earlier in the eating disorders ward. Together with author Jante Wortel, she performs in their theatrical conversation Onder de huid (Under the Skin) about the porous relationship between the character, the writer, and the world. In their book Het ongemak van een lichaam (The Discomfort of a Body, to be published in January 2026 at De Arbeiderspers), Jante and Corinne interweave their experiences of writing about an eating disorder, allowing honesty in it, and the taboo that surrounds it.

Go to the website of Corinne Heyrman
Instagram: @corinneheyrman
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Canan Marasligil

(1979) is a writer, literary translator, publisher, podcast maker and curator. She works in English, French, Turkish, Dutch and sometimes Spanish, in the Netherlands and abroad. She has translated works by, among others, the Kurdish poet Bejan Matur and the Turkish author Perihan Mağden. Canan is committed to greater diversity in the arts and is interested in challenging official discourse and fighting for free speech worldwide, through a range of creative projects and activities, from literature to films and comics.
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Johan Borger

(1984) pretends to be a singer-songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist. All these talents are really in service of something else, which can't easily be defined by words: the quest for sound. Borger is a musician who paints with words and music. As a musician he feels at home in literature, including as regular accompanist to the poet Ingmar Heytze and member of the band Asfaltfeeën. As a librettist and composer his roots lie in Americana; his creative blueprint includes Ry Cooder and Gillian Welch as well as Steinbeck and Robert M. Pirsig. With narrative songs and instrumental miniatures on electric guitar, Borger creates a uniquely colourful world that passes through your mind like a film. He also put out two well-received solo records. The title track of his debut was named "song of the year" (2011) by 3voor12 Utrecht. Zwart Glimmend Chroom (Blackly Glinting Chrome), an album by Asfaltfeeën, was released by Excelsior Recordings in 2021. Borger is currently working on a wholly instrumental album.


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Amara van der Elst

(Netherlands, 2001) is a spoken word artist, lives in Rotterdam but her home is the stage. Amara heals, connects and broadens, through words, rhythm and movement. She brings fire to stages throughout the Netherlands and abroad. The Netherlands has already seen her shine twice on national TV where, among other things, she impressed with a performance on Remembrancy on Amsterdam's Dam Square. She runs her own spoken word writers' camp called Rhyme & Reason, holds the title of Education Innovation Talent of the Year and studies Creative writing at ArtEZ Hogeschool voor de Kunsten.
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Gershwin Bonevacia

(The Netherlands, 1992) is a poet, writer and performer. In 2017 he self-published his poetry debut Ik heb een fiets gekocht (I Bought a Bike) and sold more than 6,000 copies "out of his suitcase." As poet laureate of Amsterdam he wrote one poem per month for newspaper publication between 2019 and 2022. Bonevacia managed to make good use of his dyslexia: wrestling with words turned him into an inventive word artist, and a popular guest on cultural programs. In 2021 he translated the children's book Change Sings by U.S. spoken-word artist Amanda Gorman into Dutch and published the poetry collection Toen ik klein was, was ik niet bang (I Wasn't Scared When I Was Young). The latter is an ode to his young fearless self and an attempt to incorporate that person again. In 2023, Bonevacia  appears on stage in Terug naar Prinsenplein (Back to Prinsenplein).
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Ingmar Heytze

(Netherlands, 1970) is a poet, performer and writer. He has written almost twenty volumes of poetry and his work can be found in public, specifically in the streets of Utrecht. Between 2009 and 2011 he served as poet laureate of Utrecht. He has always been closely associated with literary events and festivals in that city, including the Night of Poetry, and participates in a foundation that writes poems for the funerals of people who have no family. Heytze won the 2008 C.C.S. Crone Prize, the literary prize of the City of Utrecht, for his oeuvre, as well as the 2016 Maartenspenning cultural distinction award of the same city. He writes for various Dutch publications as a columnist and journalist.


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Benzokarim

(1996) is a poet and performer. In 2022, he won the El Hizjra literature prize for poetry and published his debut collection El Ghorba. In it, he talks to his father, mourns his mother and writes poetry about experiences that are recognisable to anyone with a migrant background. His second collection, Ons gaan allemaal (We're all going), has been awarded with the Jan Campert Prize 2025, yearly prize for poetry. As coach of Poetry Circle 070 and editor of Mensen Zeggen Dingen, he is working hard to pave the way for a new generation of world improvers. Benzokarim is Rotterdam's City Poet in 2025 and 2026.

Bekijk de website van Benzokarim
Instagram: @benzokarim_
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Shishani

(Namibia, 1988) is a singer-songwriter loved for her smooth and powerful voice. Her roots are Namibian and Belgian, but she grew up mainly in the Netherlands. Her work brings these worlds together. Her music is comforting and has a strong thread of social consciousness running through it. She founded the all-female band Miss Catharsis in 2019. Her anthropology (BA) and musicology (MA) studies focused on contemporary urban Namibian music.
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Marian Markelo

was born in Suriname (Moengo). She is Okomfo, alias Winti priestess Nana Efua. She performs the libation on 1 July at the yearly commemoration ceremony for the abolition of slavery in Suriname and the Dutch Caribbean held in Amsterdam's Oosterpark. She is the founder of NIRASE, the Dutch Winti institute for the rehabilitation and profile-raising of Winti. She is also a director of various African-Surinamese organizations, sich as NINSEE. As an expert in historical, spiritual and social African-Surinamese heritage, she works together with various art and cultural institutions and organizes heritage trips to West Africa, South America and the Caribbean.
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Kelvin Allison

Songwriter and artist, always eager to create synergy and intense experiences with his music. Celebrating joy and sadness together, through harmony, rhytm, songs and melody, that is what Kelvin Allison wants you to experience during his performance.
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Trompette de la Mort

Bruno Ferro Xavier da Silva and Gwen Stok have been working together under the moniker of Trompette de la Mort since 2014. Their art has a macabre but playful feeling to it, as if you're the guest of honour among cannibals, while trying to remember proper table manners. They are specialized in ink drawings (small and big) but paintings as well.
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Kees Biekart

is a political scientist at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS, part of Erasmus University Rotterdam) in The Hague and interested in transformative change and social movements, Together with his international students, he looks for alternative ways to support political democracy at a grassroots level. He constantly seeks out new forms of research, including "storytelling", which has become an increasingly important research method.
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Margijn Bosch

(1970) has been an actor with the theatre company ’t Barre Land since 1992. She has worked with various Dutch theatre companies. Since 2012, Bosch has taught at the Utrecht theatre school (HKU), where she produces an annual play with third-year students.
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Sterre Konijn

(1987) has built up a diverse concert and musical-theatre practice through her love of music, language and theatre. She studied Italian and classical singing, earned a Master in Musical Theatre, and learned all the possibilities for voice in her studies at Denmark's Complete Vocal Institute. She sings everything from French chanson to Bulgarian folk music, jazz and classical avant-garde; she composes; and she plays the violin, duduk and theremin. She has performed in various musical-theatre productions with companies such as Silbersee, Theater Sonnevanck, Ulrike Quade Company and Herman van Veen. She has performed at prominent Dutch venues as well as on a manure pile on the island of Terschelling and in the air above Florence. Konijn won the Concours de la Chanson Alliance Française and has appeared on Dutch radio and TV programs. In 2021 she released her debut CD een (one), a concept album about connection and loneliness, on the border between music and theatre.


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Derek Otte

(Netherlands, 1988) is known for his poetic skills, verses, stories, metaphors and spoken word. He writes "wrap-ups" on demand, writing live at events to bring them to a close in rhyme. Otte has published two collections of poetry: Regelgeving (Regulations, 2015) and TOFLOF (2017). He teaches spoken word at the Rotterdam art school (which he himself left prematurely), was the 2017-18 poet laureate of Rotterdam, and founded the Rorschach publishing house for young and controversial talent. His work is characterized by a combination of accessibility and layering. Major themes are love that doesn't quite work out and the ins and outs of the big city. Incisiveness, openness and humor alternate at high tempo.
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Sef

(aka Yousef Gnaoui) began his musical career in the group Flinke Namen (Big Names) and then successfully went solo. He had several hits and was nominated for an Edison and 3FM Award. Besides being a musician, Sef is active as an art director as well as a director, creating videos and artworks of his own and for fellow musicians, among other projects. In 2017 he started the podcast "Yous & Yay: New Emotions" with Pepijn Lanen for the Dutch broadcaster VPRO, which has since become one of the most most listened-to podcasts in the Benelux. In recent years Sef has become a highly valued and respected artist in the Dutch hip-hop scene and has secured a special place in it. In March 2020, he released his fourth pop album, El Salvador.


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N3rdistan

is a French/Moroccon musical collective, formed by rappers/singers/poets/musicians Walid Ben Salim and Widad Broco. Inspired by everything from (ancient) Arabic poetry to Massive Attack and Portishead, this republic of nerds offers a wonderful mix of sometimes unsettling texts in English and Arabic, rap, electro, mysterious song and compelling rythms. These pioneers of Moroccan hiphop and alternative music have performed in Morocco, France, Lebanon, Cape Verde, Dubai, Canada and Estonia.
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Jose Pepe Garcia

is a versatile percussionist/performer based in the Netherlands, with a great interest in classical percussion, non-western hand drumming and composition. He is a current member of the New European Ensemble and Slagwerk Den Haag (Percussion The Hague). Currently, he is on the faculty of The Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. His students Miguel Varela, Joao Borralho, Te Ping, Gonzalo Martins, Porter Ellerman, Joao Brito, Joan Piles, Dimitris Pliatsikas, Ricardo Mendes and Diogo Marques take part in Winternachten Concert - In the Dreamhouse. Pepe Garcia and Enric Monfort direct them.
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Lamin Kuyateh

(Gambia, 1964) was raised on culture: as of his fifth birthday, he studied to become a kora player. He is a true "jalli" (griot), meaning someone who passes on history though song and music. The Fiscoband, which he founded in 1993, was one of the first groups to combine kora with Western instruments. Kutayeh has lived in the Netherlands since 1996, and has performed at many festivals and venues with his Jalliya Ensemble, such as at the Concertgebouw, Tivoli Vredenburg, Melkweg, Philips Cenrum and the Schiecentrale. Later, he also founded the successful ensembles Jalliyabaa and KoraFusion, in which he frequently collaborates with musicians from all kinds of disciplines. Since 2000 he has given kora lessons at the Amsterdam Conservatory.
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Ellen Deckwitz

(The Netherlands, 1982) is a poet, columnist, critic and presenter at literary events, including Writers Unlimited. For De steen vreest mij (2011), she was awarded the C. Buddingh’ Prize for the best poetry debut. Her collection Hogere natuurkunde (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 poëzie was published, an omnibus containing her collections Olijven moet je leren lezen (2020) and Dit gaat niet over grasmaaien (2021). Deckwitz writes columns for national daily newspaper NRC. In her NPO Luister podcast Poëzie vandaag, she presents a Dutch or translated poem every workday morning. She is one of three critics of podcast Boeken FM. Since Autumn 2025, she has been one of the presenters of Nooit meer Slapen, the VPRO's night-time cultural radio programme.

Instagram: @la_deck
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Xavi Torres

Spanish pianist virtuoso Xavi Torres is one of the most outstanding young musicians from the European scene. He is currently living in Amsterdam, after having studied Classical and Jazz at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam (with David Kuyken, Harmen Fraanje, Yaniv Nachum...). He has won several prizes, including the Dutch Jazz Competition and the Keep an Eye International Award with his trio, Enderrock 2020 Best Album Prize and Catalan Best Jazz Band, among others. He became the second Spanish to ever be in the semifinals of the Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition in December 2018, after Jorge Rossy in 1992 (the most important jazz competition in the world). After his acclaimed work with the Xavi Torres Trio, his last solo piano album “Curiosity” has been released by dutch label Just Listen (attached to the world renowned classical label Channel Classics). His last project is “A Kind of Beethoven”, a commission from Barcelona's main Concert Hall to revisit Beethoven's Piano Sonatas.
He has recorded more than 25 albums with several bands and played with people like Dick Oatts, Terell Stafford, Nir Felder, Tineke Postma, Jorge Rossy and Ben van Gelder. He has written music for FUSE, Dudok String Quartet and the Intercontinental Ensemble.
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Merel Vercammen

Violinist Merel Vercammen received her first violin lessons when she was five years old and from the age of fifteen, she studied at the Utrecht Conservatory with Eeva Koskinen. She graduated with honors from the Royal College of Music in London. Merel has performed all over the world and played in concert halls such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the Wigmore Hall in London. As a soloist, Merel has performed in the violin concertos of Beethoven, Brahms and Otto Kettin. She also developed an interactive performance about music and the brain (The New Mozart Effect) and is involved in improvisation. Her albums The Zoo (2019) and The Boulanger Legacy (2021) were highly acclaimed.

Merel has won the London Grand Prize Virtuoso Competition, the National Competition of the Netherlands Young Music Talent Foundation and the Princess Christina Competition. In addition to her activities as a violinist, Merel also obtained a Master of Science in Music, Mind & Brain at Goldsmiths, University of London and a Master in Cultural Economics & Entrepreneurship at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her interests in music and science come together in her new festival SNAAR in TivoliVredenburg.
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