(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

(Rotterdam, 1989) is a Dutch-Ukrainian writer, literary programme maker, theatre maker and VR director. Her debut novel Aleksandra was published in 2021. Her grandmother is the central character in the story. She sends the main character Lisa to the Donbas to bring a cloth to the grave of her murdered uncle Kolya. In 2024, Dans Dans Revolutie (Dance Dance Revolution) was published, a novel in which Weeda tackles the issue of looking away from and looking at war in four storylines. The immersive theatre installation of the same name, Dans Dans Revolutie, won the Designers' Prize at the Dutch Theatre Festival in 2025. In Het archief Jilles - brief aan mijn grootvader (The Jilles Archive - Letter to My Grandfather, 2025), she describes how an archive discovery brings a loved one closer. Together with Teddy Tops, she compiled J'accuse (2025), a collection of texts by forty Dutch, Flemish and international writers who speak out against the erasure of the Palestinians. Lisa's work has been translated in eight countries.

Go to the website of Lisa Weeda here
Instagram: @lisa_weeda

(The Netherlands, 1990) is a writer and programme maker for the Writers Unlimited Festival The Hague. Together with her father, Pieter Steinz, she published Steinz. Gids voor de wereldliteratuur (Steinz: Guide to world literature, 2005). In this reference book, the writers give an overview of narrative fiction including 416 writers, 104 masterpieces, 52 bookwebs, 52 literary maps, 26 themes, 26 quizzes and 26 one-book wonders. In 2016 her novel De tranen van Saar (The Tears of Saar) were published as part of the Young Adult-book series Sterren van morgen (Stars of Tomorrow). In 2019, she published P.S. Van liefdespost tot hatemail (P.S. From Love Letters to Hatemail), a collection of 150 remarkable, funny or moving letters in Dutch she found in archives. Together with her essayistic descriptions, the facsimiles tell the history of letters while also revealing a portrayal of The Netherlands through the ages.

(Netherlands, 1952) became well-known with her novels Geen gewoon Indisch meisje (No Ordinary Indonesian Girl, 1983) and Vaders van betekenis (Fathers of Significance, 1989), as well as the documentary Het land van mijn ouders (The Land of My Parents, 1983), in which the principal characters seek out their roots. Bloem is the daughter of Indonesian parents who, after Indonesian independence, migrated to the Netherlands. In 1993 she received the E. du Perron Award. Besides writing a large number of novels, short-story and poetry collections, and non-fiction,YA - a.o. Matabia (1981) about an Indonesian girl, published in Japanese and German, and many times awarded -  and children's books, she made film and TV productions such as the feature film Ver van familie (Far from Family, 2008) and the YA film De tovenaarsleerling (The Sorcerer's Apprentice, 1986) that won her a Cinekid Award. Her novel Een meisje van honderd (Girl of a Hundred Years, 2012) is a family story offering a brilliant overview of a century of Indonesian-Dutch history. Recent works include Haar goede hand (Her Good Hand, 2016) on her relationship with her mother, Een teken van leven (A Sign of Life, 2018) about mourning, and Indo (2020) on Indonesian history and Indonesian perceptions of identity. Her novel Meisjes uit het dorp (Village Girls) will be published January 2023. Bloem, who is also a clinical psychologist and visual artist besides being an author, received the 2022 Constantijn Huygens Prize for her entire oeuvre.

(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.

(Suriname, 1947) made her mark with Over de gekte van een vrouw (About the Madness of a Woman), an experimental novel about the complexity of being a woman. In the 1990s she wrote three decolonisation novels that she called her "triplets": Gewaagd leven (Daring Life, 1996), Lijken op liefde (Resembling Love, 1997) and Was getekend (Signed, 1999), now collected as Onmogelijk moederland (Impossible Motherland). Roemer is praised in both Suriname and the Netherlands for her daring and willfulness in her now extensive oeuvre of poetry, prose and theatre texts. She was awarded the 2016 P.C. Hooft Prize, and in 2021, for her entire oeuvre, the Dutch Literary Prize. Her 2018 novel Gebroken wit (Broken White) is an impressive portrait of the Vanta family, in which Surinamese mores and norms leave a legacy. The anthology Ik ga strijden moeder: gekozen gedichten (I'm going to fight mother: chosen poems, 2021) includes work from her first collection from 1970 to poetry she published from 2015 to 2020. Around themes of identity and the contradictions between Suriname and the Netherlands, Roemer sophisticatedly interweaves the lives of five characters in her latest novel DealersDochter (Dealer's Daughter, 2023).

(Belgium, 1991) is a writer, poet and visual artist. Her work is characterised by a critical attitude towards globalisation and capitalism. For example, she drew inspiration for her debut Shop Girl (2017), in which she analyses the fast-fashion industry, from the time she worked at Primark, and the poems in Sticky Drama (2019) include as their subjects the depletion of natural resources, environmental pollution and global warming. Her fourth collection Slangen (Snakes, 2022), for which she won the 2022 Jan Campert Prize, questions, among other things, the still-prevailing belief in progress. She is currently working on Corpus Britney, a novel about capitalism, witchcraft and Britney Spears.

(Netherlands, 1963) is a poet and writer. He debuted as a novelist with Hier ben ik (Here I Am, 2002). This was followed by an oeuvre full of characters who find themselves somewhat in the shadows of society, such as a cloakroom manager in the theatre monologue De garderobier (The Cloakroom Manager, 2002), or a man who sharpens pencils at Ikea in the novella Zo zie je alles (That's How You See It All, 2019). Under the pseudonym Ellen Winkelbach he published Het moet wel beschaafd blijven (It's Supposed to Remain Civilized, 2008). His 2016 novel Oksana was nominated for the Fintro Literature Prize; in 2021, he received the Brussels VUB Luc Bucquoye Prize for idiosyncratic literature. His most recent novel Waarachtige beschrijvingen uit de permafrost (True Descriptions from the Permafrost, 2021) was shortlisted for the Boekenbon Literature Prize and won the 2022 F. Bordewijk Prize.

(Netherlands, 1964) is a philosopher and essayist who writes about technology, democracy, animals and nature, and the influence of fantasy and imagination on behaviour, among other subjects. With Hersenbeest (Brain Beast, 2016), on the social and existential significance of neuroscience, she won the Socrates Wisselbeker for the most stimulating philosophy book of the year. For De lege hemel (Empty Sky, 2021), a philosophical essay on loneliness, self and self-image, masks, and your place on Earth, she won the 2022 J. Greshoff Prize.

(Netherlands, 1962) is The Hague's alderman for Finance, Culture and Economy. She studied social geography with a specialisation in historical geography at the University of Amsterdam and published the book Binnewaeters Gewelt, 450 jaar boezembeheer in Hollands Noorderkwartier. From 1998 to 2006, she was a member of the Amsterdam City Council and an Amsterdam alderman from 1999 to 2002. She then served as alderman of Leidschendam-Voorburg from 2012 to 2017 and as alderman of The Hague since 2017.

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.

(Morocco, 1973) is a journalist, columnist, translator, researcher and producer. She publishes in various media (including Dutch national daily newspaper NRC and women's magazine Linda); runs her own online magazine for culture lovers, Aicha Qandisha. She compiled a story collection about Arab women, Achter de sluier (Behind the Veil, 1999); 2013 saw the publication of her book Arabieren kijken (Looking at Arabs), about "ordinary" people in the Arab world. She made TV programs for various broadcasters, including the documentary series Seks en de Zonde (Sex and Sin). Together with Michelin-starred chef Soenil Bahadoer, she wrote the culinary books Spicy Chef (2020) and Streetfood (2022). She published two further books in 2022: Een koffer vol citroenen (A Suitcase Full of Lemons), a requiem for and portrait of her mother, and Arbeidsmigranten in Nederland (Migrant Labourers in the Netherlands).

(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.

(Netherlands, 1964) is a writer, publicist and interviewer. She is a reviewer for Belgian daily newspaper De Standaard, writes the biography of author Joost Zwagerman and was awarded the J.M.A. Biesheuvel Prize for her debut, the short stories collection Diepe aarde (Deep Earth). She previously wrote for De Groene Amsterdammer and served as editor of De Bezige Bij, deputy director of the Dutch Foundation for Literature and chairman of the Authors' Union, among other positions. In 2013, 2016 and 2017, she was involved as a programme maker and interviewer and in 2022 as interim director of the Winternachten International Literature Festival The Hague.

(Turkey, 1982) is an actress, singer and theatre artist. She has frequently appeared on Dutch stages and television and in Dutch films; she received the 2008 Guido de Moor Prize for her role in the theatre production Hollandse spoor (Dutch Rails). She performed with her own band, Meral's Harem, in the 2015-16 production Ochtendzee (Morning Sea) and appeared in the musical Lost Tango in 2019. After the first Corona-lockdown in 2020, she toured the Netherlands with musicians Chris Doyle and Frank Rosaly as the Meral Polat Trio with Merals Zomer (Meral's Summer): sentimenal ballads of woe, love songs full of longing, and sexy up-tempo numbers in Turkish and Kurdish. On their debut album Ez Kî Me (Who Am I), released in December 2022, Meral performs her own texts as well as poems written by her father, Ali Ihsan Polat.

(Russia, 1985) is a playwright, essayist, dramaturge and novelist with Russian, Jewish and Ukrainian roots. They live and work in Germany, where they are connected with the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin. Their brilliant debut novel Außer sich (Beside Myself, 2017) was translated into 16 languages and won multiple awards. Im Menschen muss alles herrlich sein (Everything Must Be Lovely about a Person, 2021) was recently awarded the Preis der Literaturhäuser; it is a sobering portrait of a period of upheaval, from perestroika to present-day Germany, and at the same time a family novel about loss in the lives of powerful female figures.

(Netherlands, 1967) is a fiction and non-fiction author, documentarian and critic. In 1995 she emigrated to Surinam as a freelance journalist and in 1997 published Reishandboek Suriname, a cultural travel guide. Her first published short story Voor William (For William) won the incentive prize of the Kwakoe literary awards. In 2005 her novel debut de Parbo-blues appeared, followed in 2009 by the novel Solo, een liefde (Solo, a love) about the ambition of two lovers in colonial Surinam who desire a better life. Her non-fictional Fansi's stilte, een grootmoeder en de slavernij (Fansi's Silence, a Grandmother and Slavery, 2015) tells the life of her grandmother. In Plantage Wildlust (2020), she describes life on a Surinamese plantation in the early 20th century, during the period of contract labour, through various characters. De wilde vaart (Tramp Trade, 2022) recounts, in text and image, a boat journey in which Leuwsha and her husband travel Surinamese waters in search of their own core and the resilience of a people. Leuwsha is cultural attaché of the Dutch Embassy in Paramaribo, and writes columns, articles and reviews for various Surinamese media.

(The Netherlands, 1987) debuted in 2013 with Vluchtautogedichten (Getaway Car Poems), which won the C. Buddingh' Prize. The jury praised his "boasting, swagger, and bravado." Van der Graaff escapes everyday reality in his very own getaway car — namely poetry — looking for new dimensions. His second volume Dood werk (Dead Work, 2015) won the J.C. Bloem Prize. He publishes poetry and prose in various magazines, performs regularly, and is editor and co-founder of the online literary magazine Samplekanon. His first novel Wormen en engelen (Worms and Angels, 2017) is a contemporary quest for the meaning of faith. In 2020 he published the poetry collection Nederland in stukken (The Netherlands in Pieces), followed by his second novel Onder asfalt (Under Asphalt, 2022). He curates compelling poetry recitation programmes each year for Writers Unlimited.

Go to website Maarten van der Graaff

(Netherlands, 1993) is a poet, artist and critic for Dutch national daily newspaper NRC. His work has been published in various Dutch, Flemish and international magazines and platforms. In 2018, his C. Buddingh' Prize-nominated debut collection Obelisque was published, designed as a poetry glossy with alphabetically arranged poems and fashion photographs.

(1988) is a Somali poet and writer living in the Netherlands. Her poetry collection Mythen en stoplichten (Myths and Traffic Lights, 2022) was one of the most striking debuts of recent years. 'A daunting debut' said the jury who awarded her collection with the Herman de Coninckprijs, the most important Flemish award for Dutch language poetry. "If the body doesn't fit the language, adapt the language - I see that simple and effective reversal in Myths and Traffic Lights," wrote Obe Alkema in the Dutch national newspaper NRC. She has published poetry in Dutch literary publications, was part of the NOORDWOORD Poetry Talent Programme, is a guest writer at nY and works on her first novel Kijk es naar al dit licht (Look at all this light), to be published in 2025.

is a poet who published the collection Godface (2019), in which the world and identity are definitively unstable and various voices speak through one other: 'ik lig op de bank / terwijl ik mee moet doen met de revolutie’, and: ‘dit was de laatste keer dat ik op mijn werkmail inlogde / ik ben niet meer het monster dat ik was.’ ("I'm lying on the couch / while I have to join the revolution," and: "this was the last time I logged into my work email / I'm no longer the monster I was."). Her poems, essays and short stories have also appeared in such publications as nY, Het Liegend Konijn, Tirade, Poëziekrant, Terras, Revisor, De Groene, DW B, Cimedart, Extra Extra, De Gids and online at SampleKanon, MisterMotley, DIG, Minutes of the Invisible, Optimist, and Ooteotee. She makes poetry films with artist Johan van Dijke. Her writing residency at the Jan van Eyck Academy led to curating programmes for Perdu. Besides writing, she works as a pediatrician.

(Netherlands, 1978) is a visual artist living and working in Amsterdam. In his paintings - constructed from his own photographs - isolated individuals wander through spaces in which the walls seem likely to melt at any moment and ominous things lie beyond the invasive flashlight. In his own words: "In my paintings I try to reconstruct a mental space which is transitional and ephemeral, where the individual lives in isolation, locked in his own personal, unique universe." Furthermore, he creates poetry films with author and poet Asha Karami.

(Tetouan, Morocco, 1974) studied philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. In 1994, he made his debut with the poetry collection Mijn vormen (My Forms). It was followed by Mijn gedichten (My Poems) (1998), Varkensroze ansichten (Pig pink postcards) (2003), awarded the Jan Campert Prize, among others, and Tempel (2013), for which he received the Awater Poetry Prize. He was Amsterdam's City Poet for a year, has performed at numerous festivals at home and abroad, and collections with selections of his work were published in both Swedish and English translations. Waar is het lam (Where is the Lamb?, 2022), his fifth collection of poems, is a probing investigation into the meaning of sacrifice; an intriguing collection of poems in which the personal and political, dream and reality, fear and desire continually interact. The collection is competing for the Grote Poëzieprijs, the leading Dutch award for poetry, the winner of which will be announced on 17 May 2023.

(Nigeria, 1974), a writer and literary scholar, lived in Belgium for years and moved to the US in 2013 where she teaches Creative Writing at the University of Georgia. Besides novels she also writes poetry, children's books, educational books and short stories. In 2005 she debuted as a novelist with De feniks (The Phoenix), a portrait of a young Nigerian in Belgium who struggles with feelings of depression and uprooting after the death of her five-year-old son. This was followed by the novels On Black Sisters' Street (2011, the original version in Dutch was published as Fata Morgana in 2008) about four Nigerian women who end up as sex workers in Antwerp, Nachtdanser (Night Dancer, 2011) and De zwarte messias (The Black Messiah, 2013). In 2019, her collection of short stories Better Never than Late, about the unusual lives and relationships of a group of Nigerian immigrants making their way in Belgium, appeared. Her new novel The Middle Daughter will be published in April 2023.

(Amsterdam, 1983) is an actress and founded the theatre collective Waal and Wind with Eva Maria de Waal in 2015. They make plays and podcasts on topics they consider important. Their first triptych is about the position of women: Holy-F (2016), Mama Marlene (2020). The final volume titled Eigentlich bin ich ganz anders aber ich komme so selten dazu will be released in October 2023. While studying theatre in Maastricht, she made her debut in her first film role in Leef!, for which she won a Golden Calf for best actress in a supporting role. Since then she has acted in a large number of feature films, television series and, initially with the Noord Nederlands Toneel and later with Het Nationale Theater, in theatre productions including in leading roles in Romeo and Juliet, Tirza, Bed Bound and Faust.

(Netherlands, 1962) is a poet and visual artist. Her collection oorlogspaarden tot in de buitenwijken (War Horses up to the Suburbs, 2015) was nominated for the J.C. Bloem Prize, and the impressive collection het leven van sterren (Life of Stars, 2019) for the 2020 De Grote Poëzieprijs, major Dutch poetry award. In wilde dood (Wild Death, 2022), Vos writes about death and loss while noting, "settlers don't want to give up the climate." In the book, she seeks a politics of mourning, evoking the extinction of animals and the destruction of habitats: "the political nakedness of mourners / unfolding into an island a tongue." Also this book is nominated for the Grote Poëzieprijs 2023 for which the winner will be announced 17 May 2023. Vos' words were performed by actress and theatre maker Caro Derkx and dancer and artist Irina Baldini in a special way during the 2003 Winternachten festival programme De grondstof van het gedicht.

is a dancer and creator. She has performed at festivals, galleries and museums, including the Venice Biennale and Tate Britain, and choreographs for theatre and on location. She co-founded the 4bid Gallery, non profit place, project and platform for encounters between visual and performance arts, and created the performance events Highs & Lows at OT301, both in Amsterdam. As a dancer, Irina Baldini responds to chance and circumstance and works with temporary methods. During the 2023 Winternachten Festival, on the evening of Friday, 21 April, she moved to the words of poet Marwin Vos and respond to the question: what is the raw material of the poem?

(Netherlands), composer, arranger and pianist, toured the world as a keyboard player with a number of bands. Together with Cees Koldijk, singer of the music group 4tuoze matroze, she composed the music of IJmuider Symfonie, performed in 2009 by a symphony orchestra, two choirs and soloists. She has also composed soundtracks for films (including Eddy Terstall's Simon and the short films De laatste rit and Missen by Jochem de Vries), as well as arrangements for many artists and music for theatre and CD projects.

(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.

(Belarus, 1963) lives and works since the nineties in Antwerp. He studied in Minsk, Paris and Moscow. At 18, he decided to devote himself fully to writing; however, in the late Soviet era, Belarus had only one (state) publishing house and one literary magazine. The editor informed him that his texts were too "different," ideologically unacceptable and politically incorrect. His high-profile debut novel Sergeant Bertrand (1991) has since become a classic and reached millions of readers worldwide. In addition to stories, essays, a play, and more texts, Skorobogatov has published six novels: the already mentioned Sergeant Bertrand (two versions, 1991 and 2004), Audiëntie bij de vorst (Audience with the Monarch, 1994), Aarde zonder water (Earth Without Water; 2002), Cocaïne (2017), Portret van een onbekend meisje (Portrait of an Unknown Girl, 2015) and De wasbeer (The Raccoon, 2020).

(Netherlands, 1973) is a film and television producer. He started as recording supervisor of Dutch soap operas, then directed many episodes of Onderweg naar morgen (Underway to Tomorrow) and Costa!, and was involved as a producer in various series. After several years as creative director of Nickelodeon, he became creative director of the media company NL Film. Since 2021, Wolffers has been Head of Content Acquisition Benelux at Amazon Prime Video.

(Netherlands, 1977) is a producer, investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker. Since 2011, Can has been making documentary series for BNNVARA. In Bloedbroeders (Blood Brothers) he investigates the Armenian genocide. In 2016, his triptych De Arabische Storm (The Arab Storm) about the consequences of the Arab Spring was released, as well as the series Onze missie in Afghanistan (Our Mission in Afghanistan). In 2017 he created the award-nominated diptych In het spoor van IS (Trail of IS) and in 2018 he portrayed the misery of jihadists' children in De verloren kinderen van het kalifaat (The Lost Children of the Caliphate). In 2022 the 4-part series Breuklijnen (Fault Lines) was broadcast, in which Can portrays problematic European neighbourhoods of Paris (Clichy), Brussels (Molenbeek), Stockholm (Rinkeby) and London (Tower Hamlets). January 2023 Dutch national TV network NPO1 broadcast Sinan op zoek naar het paradijs (Sinan's search for paradise), a four-part documentary series he made together with Thomas Blom. Besides his TV work, Sinan writes background stories and books to accompany his series (such as Bloedbroeders and De Arabische storm).

(Ukraine, 1989) is a writer, poet and journalist. He has published the autobiographical novel The Melchior Elephant, or The Man Who Thought (2016), a poetry collection and a play. For two years, he wrote reports for the Ukrainian media from Donetsk under the pseudonym Stanislav Vasin about the situation in the occupied Donbas region. In May 2017, separatist rebels discovered his identity, and he was arrested for "extremism" and "espionage." After a month and a half in the basement of the "Ministry of State Security," he was transferred to a penal camp. Aseyev was released in December 2019 in a prisoner exchange. In 2020 he published The Torture Camp on Paradise Street, a confrontational account of tortures and mistreatments he and others suffered in the Russian-run prison camp. A collection from his reports from Donetsk were published as In Isolation: Dispatches from Occupied Donbas (2021).

(Paris, 1966) grew up in Senegal. He is a Professor of Literature at the University of Pau, in south-western France. In his work - poetry, novels and academic publications - Diop explores European perceptions of the African continent and Africans, with a focus on the shared history of Senegal and France. His debut novel 1889, l'Attraction universelle (2012) tells of a delegation of Senegalese who were shown as exotic curiosities at the World's Fair in Paris in 1889. His masterful second novel Frère d'âme (At Night All Blood is Black, 2019) brought Diop international recognition after it was awarded the International Booker Prize 2021, the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens and the Premio Strega Europeo. The novel topped the French bestseller list for weeks. Like At Night All Blood is Black, his novel La porte du voyage sans retour (2022) highlights a period of colonial history.

(Netherlands, 1978) is a journalist. She works for several programmes on Dutch national broadcaster Radio 1 and writes; for example, she is author of the book De Generatorgeneratie, leven na Tsjernobyl (The Generator Generation, life after Chernobyl). As a Belarus expert, she regularly appears in the media.

(Netherlands, 1989) is the stage name of singer-songwriter Tessa Douwstra. After playing in several bands, in 2017 she had a hit as LUWTEN with the eponymous album and the single Go Honey. Her second album Draft — about how to relate to the other, and how to allow it without losing yourself — won the 3voor12 Award for best Dutch album of the year in 2021.

(1989) studied Comparative Dutch Language Sciences in Amsterdam and Berlin. She makes programmes on art, literature and culture and has interviewed several domestic and foreign writers on stage at De Balie in Amsterdam. She also worked for the European Press Prize. She believes that art does not have to be useful, conversations should be allowed to be abrasive and that there should be more room for women in the public debate. She also thinks you have to be frugal about beautiful things and so has for years organised the Gesprek Voor de Dam and programmes on forgotten literary works. Her debut was published in 2022: the literary essay Al die liefde en woede (All that love and anger) in which, after the birth of her child, she wonders why it is that she feels anger alongside joy and love.

(Netherlands, 1971) has been a reviewer for several Dutch daily and weekly newspapers and a jury member of several literary prizes. She is part of the writers' collective Fixdit, which aims to increase diversity in the canon and raise awareness about gender inequality in literature. She is currently researching the life of Dutch poet, singer and glass engraver Maria Tesselschade Roemers Visscher (1594-1649).

(Curaçao, 1983) won all major poetry awards in The Netherlands and Belgium for her 2018 poetry debut Habitus. This startling, existentialist collection deals with Curaçao, feeling at home, and her role as a (black) woman, immigrant and outsider. She studied Writing for Performance at the Utrecht School of the Arts. Fabias' work is characterized by variety, both in terms of content and style. De Groene Amsterdammer magazine commented in 2018: "Fabias dares to utilize every nook and cranny of poetry as an art form; some poems are short and lyrical, others narrative and long, sometimes they are clear and accessible and then hermetic and experimental." Habitus has been published in France, Italy, Germany, Argentina and the USA. Fabias also translated poetry collections by British poet Warsan Shire and Nobel Prize winner Louise Glück into Dutch.

(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.

(1971) is a writer, performer, columnist and host, and was the Poet Laureate of the Netherlands from 2023 to 2025. She has been a driving force behind numerous poetry stage initiatives for decades. Gons made her debut in 2021 with her poetry collection Doe het toch maar (Just do it). In 2022, she won De Johnny, a lifetime achievement award for stage poetry, and in 2024 she was awarded the Gouden Ganzenveer. She presents various programmes and is the host of the musical-literary show Babs' Woordsalon.

Instagram: @babsgons

(The Netherlands, 1984) is a poet, performer and events programmer. As evident in his multilingual poetry collection Bokman (2018), his work looks at the relationship of people's identity to society. A strong performance won him the first Van Dale SPOKEN Award. In 2019 and 2020 he was poet laureate of Rotterdam. Ik vond geen spoken in Achtmaal (I Found No Ghosts in Achtmaal, 2020) describes, via diary entries, poems, confessions, and rituals, the search for what remains of a person long after he has died. He has published poems on the online platforms SampleKanon and Hard//Hoofd and in magazines such as nY and Kunsttijdschrift Vlaanderen. He teaches performance literature and poetry at the Creative Writing programme at ArtEZ. Together with Flemish writer and musician Joost Hoekaf, he creates introspective hip hop in the Vudu Cru project. His next collection, Masc:r, will be published in January 2026.

Instagram: @dean_bowen
Instagram: @vudu.cru

(Rotterdam, 1992) is a writer, maker and performer. In 2017, he graduated from ArtEZ Creative Writing with the post-truth non-fiction novella I want to climb the mountain, for which he was selected for the Dutch Foundation for Literature's Slow Writing Lab talent programme. He has published on ABCyourself, in Tirade and in the Oerol Dagkrant, and performed at Lowlands, the Wintertuinfestival and at Perdu, among others. Rombouts is a member of De Literaire Boyband, who releases its debut EP In Canon January 2023. Together with musician-artist Willie Darktrousers and with performers Dean Bowen and Maxime Garcia Diaz, he created the music and spoken word performance Poetic Resistance: a poetic indictment of anger and resistance. Can a demonstration be a poem, a manifesto an art object? Especially for the closing programme of Winternachten festival 2023, they made new work together in response to the question: what is the raw material of the poem?

(The Netherlands, 1993) writes poetry and prose in Dutch and English. She studied at the University of Amsterdam and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her debut collection Het is warm in de hivemind (It's warm in the hivemind) was published in 2021 and was awarded the C. Buddingh' Prize for best poetry debut in 2022. In November 2025, her second poetry collection was published in both Dutch and English by De Bezige Bij: Het netwerk moet gebouwd worden and The network must be built.

Go to website Maxim Garcia Diaz
Instagram @maximgarciadiaz

(1990) is an artist, musician and producer of his own label Snertmormel Records. WIth his band he released the punk and metal album Glibberburen in 2017, followed in 2020 by Eenzame hoogte (Lonely heights). On this solo EP he excels with thick beats, hip-hop and auto-tune: he combines trap and drill with original European music, such as medieval and early Baroque music, folk from Northeast Europe and Celtic music. Together with performers Dean Bowen, Martin Rombouts and Maxime Garcia Diaz, he created the music and spoken word performance Poetic Resistance: a poetic indictment of anger and resistance in which he supports the poets in their readings with dark electronics. Can a demonstration be a poem, a manifesto an art object? Especially for the closing programme of Winternachten festival 2023, they made new work together in response to the question: what is the raw material of the poem?

(Arnhem, 1995) is an actress and theatre maker. She nurtures a great love for visual arts, literature and philosophy, areas she uses to question the major themes of our time. Her solo graduation performance Me, Myself and Sir Roger Scruton at the Toneelacademie Maastricht was awarded the Henriëtte Hustinxprijs. From 2020, Caro develops her work at Frascati Productions. Her first play A Portrait of the Artist in Red, Yellow and Blue premiered in December 2020. This was followed in 2022 by Emma Watson - The Play with Nora el Koussour. During Winternachten festival 2023, she performed a monologue written by Anoek Nuyens and Rebekka de Wit, and texts by Marwin Vos in the programme De grondstof van het gedicht, 

(Curaçao, 2006) is a student at The Hague's Maris College Belgian Park. 'Jack of all trades, master of some' is a description he finds applicable to himself: he has a great passion for aviation, enjoys being creative (currently mainly photography) and, since reading Donald Niedekker's novel Waarachtige beschrijvingen uit de permafrost (True Descriptions from the Permafrost), he also rediscovered his passion for reading.

(Syria) is a percussionist, trainer and workshop leader. He plays various oriental and world percussion instruments (frame drum, darbouka, djembe, cajon, handpan) in bands such as Étoiles Electriques and HAN Here & Now, in a variety of musical styles. For organisations like Sounds of Change, Raw Resonance, Art Root Collective, Orchestre Partout and Fort van de Verbeelding, he leads music workshops and creative trainings.

Music is a language that connects, regardless of origin, culture and language. From this idea, Orchestre Partout started the first music workshop in asylum seekers' centre Alkmaar in 2010, and since then weekly music lessons and rehearsals have been organised in Dutch asylum seekers' centres. Orchestre Partout is a band and breeding ground with musicians from all over the world, combining music of all shapes and sizes into a diverse world repertoire: from electrifying Kurdish dances to Syrian ballads or funky Punjabi love songs.

is a moderator, trainer and presents the book talk show Leesoffensief which is broadcast on regional Dutch broadcaster AT5. Besides being a fan of books and sharing stories that bring in other perspectives, she has her own company through which she trains international organisations and companies on privilege, intersectionality, inclusion and safety.

(Netherlands, 1988) made her debut as a writer in 2010 with the novel Alles is altijd fictie (Everything is Always Fiction), a strong story in which the protagonist leaves her parental home and moves into a room. No one really seems to notice her. She struggles to become an authentic person. In 2013, she published her second book, Dit blijft tussen ons (This Remains Between Us), about a neighbourhood community where tempers run high. Charlatans (2021) is an adventure novel with a gothic atmosphere, illusionism and haunting developments about city dwellers turning against rather radical laws and regulations.

is a journalist (working for NRC and Investico), writer, interviewer, presenter and translator. She has been reporting for NRC on Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2022. She has previously written news articles on Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, among others. For Investico, she wrote about labour exploitation and modern slavery in the Netherlands and Europe, among other topics. Together with fellow Investico editor Sylvana Verbraak, Peek creates and presents the podcast Speurwerk (Research) on investigative journalism, in which they highlight Investico's latest publications and show how journalists work. Peek studied Modern History and Russian. She translated Alejandra Ortiz's De waarheid zal me bevrijden (The Truth Will Set Me Free. 2022) from English into Dutch, an account from an asylum centre in The Netherlands and also a diary of a Mexican trans woman.

knows how to touch like no other with her voice and the songs of Bollywood. She is a well-known name in the Surinamese-Hindustani and Indian communities as a singer-songwriter, and did the soundtrack for Zoop in India, the feature film that screened in cinemas in 2006 with great success. As part of the Bidesia project, she performed in India during Kumbh Mela, the biggest religious festival in Hinduism. Because of her multilingual background, but with her heart in her mother tongue Sarnámi, she has had a major part in musical collaborations with Indian singer Asha Bhonsle, British rapper Apache Indian, the Metropole Orchestra, singer Kenny B, the Residentie Orkest and the Matangi Quartet, among others.

(Ukraine, 1974) studied at the music academies in Poltava, Kiew and Enschede. In 1999 he released his first CD, Awakening featuring works by a.o. Vivaldi, Bach, Pachelbel and Piazolla. He specialized in Argentine tango on bayan and bandoneon at Codarts Rotterdam. As a soloist, he won the 2005 National Accordion Competition in The Netherlands with his rendition of Victor Vlasov's "Five Views of the Land of the Gulag Archipelago", also the title piece of his 2012 CD Gulag. He prefers genre-transcending projects in which visual art, literature and music enhance and flow into one another. He developed such projects with writer and visual artist Armando, sculptor and illustrator Koenraad Tinel, and with writers, journalists and filmmakers, including Stefan Hertmans, Cherry Duyns and Peter d'Hamecourt, among others. For his double-CD De sneeuwstorm (The Snowstorm, 2022), Lysenko arranged and played on bayan Georgi Sviridov's music to Alexander Pushkin's story of the same name, recited by Martinus Nijhoff Prize-winning Pushkin translator Hans Boland. With fundraising events and benefit performances, Oleg raises money to pay for an ambulance for the Ukrainian region of Poltava, where his family comes from.

(Ukraine, 1983) is a writer, essayist and journalist. Her work has been published in several languages. She has lived in Vienna since 2011 and has been writing in German since 2014, including columns for German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and news magazine Zeit Online. Her novel Zabuttya (Oblivion, 2016) was awarded as Book of Year by BBC Ukraine. After publication in autumn 2022 in Dutch translation by Tobias Wals and Marina Snoek, Dutch national newspaper NRC wrote: "Then again, the novel breathes the typical, early-twentieth-century Thomas Mann atmosphere, then again it jumps to the love life of a modern young woman. It works really beautifully (...) Ultimately, this incredibly rich, lyrical and melancholic novel wants to tell something about generational trauma. And even more than about the history of Ukraine, Maljartschuk's book is about forgetting." Her debut novel Biografie eines zufälligen Wunders (A Biography of a Chance Miracle) was published in 2012 and the collection of essays Gleich geht die Geschichte weiter, wir atmen nur aus (In a moment, the story continues, we just exhale) in 2022, in which she describes what Russia's bellicose expansionist policy is doing to Ukraine from the Maidan protests in 2014 onwards. In 2018, she won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize for her short story Frösche im Meer (Frogs in the Sea).

(UK, 1993), writer and photographer, grew up in south-east London, which is also the setting of his bestselling debut novel Open Water (2021). He has featured in many publications including Litro and The White Review; his short story Pray was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2020. Open Water won the Costa First Novel Award and Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards, and was a number-one Times bestseller. This is an intense love story: "tender, carefully observed and reported, shedding light on the limitations of masculinity." (The Guardian). Two young people meet in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists - he a photographer, she a dancer - trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence. Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. His second novel Small Worlds will be published in May 2023.

is Europe reporter for Dutch national broadcaster BNR News Radio. He is also a graduate Slavist. He studied, lived and worked in St Petersburg, Kiev and Warsaw - and travelled throughout Central and Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. As a Europe reporter and former Ukraine correspondent, he closely follows the Russian war in Ukraine, as well as its consequences. Geert Jan has also just returned from Ukraine, where he travelled and reported for 2 weeks. Together with Floris Akkerman, he has been making the podcast BNR Perestrojkast since 2019, 'BNR's one and only podcast on Central and Eastern Europe', with national and international guests such as Vitaliy Klichchko, Svetlana Tichanovskaya, Edi Rama, Nino Haaratischwili and Sasha Marianna Salzmann.

followed East European Studies at the UvA after his journalism studies, and specialised in Russian language, economy, politics, history and culture. He worked from 2009 to 2013 as a correspondent in Russia for Dutch and Belgian media, travelling throughout the country and writing about politics, economy, culture and daily life. As a former Soviet Union reporter based in the Netherlands, he worked for VPRO's Bureau Buitenland, De Correspondent and Wordt Vervolgd, among others, and currently for the Reformatorisch Dagblad. For Trouw he is North Holland correspondent, and at NRC editor and reporter from Ukraine on the war against Russia. From 2019, Floris presents Perestrojkast with Geert Jan Hahn for radio station BNR, 'the only real podcast about Central and Eastern Europe. Because there are still many stories to write and tell about the former Soviet Union.'

(Surinam, 1962) is the National Coordinator against Discrimination and Racism since 2021. Baldewsingh was alderman in The Hague for 12 years, from 2006 to 2018. Prior to that, he was a documentary editor and, from 1998, a Hague city councillor. As alderman, he held various policy areas in his portfolio, including social affairs and employment, neighbourhood approach, sports, city management and environmental policy, public health, integration, personnel and organisation and civic affairs. Besides his work as NCDR, he participates as a dual PhD student in the programme of Leiden University Dual PhD Centre The Hague. His dissertation will be on Sarnámi as a language in oppression.

(Iran, 1960) is a member of the Senate of the Dutch Parliament (Eerste Kamer) since June 2019 for GroenLinks. From 2008 to 2018 she chaired the Executive Board of Oxfam Novib. Karimi is highly experienced in the field of international cooperation and human rights, and she is a strategic delevopment coach for leadership and organisational change. She came to Europe as a political refugee in 1983. She studied in the Netherlands and was a member of the Dutch House of Representatives for GroenLinks (Green Left) from 1998 till 2006. In 2007 she helped to establish the Afghan parliament as a consultant with the UN branch UNDP. As an administrator, she was involved with the advisory board of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, among other projects. She chairs the Board of Stichting Writers Unlimited since 2018. Karimi has written thee books: Slagveld Afghanistan (Battlefield Afghanistan, 2006), with co-author Chris Keulemans Het geheim van het vuur (The Secret of Fire, 2007) and In naam van de vrijheid: hoe de wereld na 9/11 steeds onvrijer is geworden (In the name of freedom: how our world has become increasingly unfree after 9/11, 2021).

(1957) is director of the Literatuurmuseum in The Hague and chair of the Jan Campert Foundation. He studied Dutch language in Leiden and, as of 1982, worked for the organisation that looks after the national Dutch literary heritage (formerly the Letterkundig Museum). He organised exhibitions about writers such as Remco Campert, Miep Diekmann, and Cees Nooteboom. From 2002 to 2005 he was director of the Haags Historisch Museum/Museum de Gevangenpoort, and afterwards of Stichting Lezen. In 2009 he returned to the Literatuurmuseum as director. Meinderts has publications to his name on writers Anna Blaman, Emmy van Lokhorst and Sonja Witstein. He also wrote Een literaire roadtrip: in 30 dagen langs 100 schrijversgraven (2010), ‘Uit geil en bloed bestaat dit rotte leven!’: Max Kijzer (1893-1944) (2021) en In gekroonde stoeten (2022).

(2008) is the first Jonge Stadsdichter (Young City Poet) of The Hague. Her winning poem Een reis door de stad waar mijn leven compleet voelt: Den Haag (A journey through the city where my life feels complete: The Hague) was the deciding factor during the final. Chelsy may call herself the Young City Poet of The Hague for a year.
The final of the school competition, an initiative of the City of The Hague, Bibliotheek Den Haag, Huis van Gedichten and Literatuurmuseum, took place during National Poetry Day in the Central Library. Finalists from eight schools in The Hague were allowed to recite their poem. Huis van Gedichten will support Chelsy in 2023 in her writing and performing skills.

(The Netherlands, 1991) is a writer and poet. The first Dutch writer to do so, Rijneveld won the 2020 International Booker Prize for The Discomfort of Evening, the English translation by Michele Hutchison of his 2018 debut novel De avond is ongemak. His Kalfvlies (Calf's Membrane, 2015) won the C. Buddingh Prize for best poetry debut, was followed in 2019 by his collection Fantoommerrie (Phantom Mare). His poems are riddle-like prose stories featuring notably strong metaphors. He writes about grand themes like death and loneliness, and about his experiences as the country child who goes to study in the big city.  In 2021 he published his second novel Mijn lieve gunsteling, in which a veterinarian and a farmer's daughter develop a mutual obsessive fascination. Its English version My Heavenly Favorite was awarded the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction in 2025. His poetry collection Komijnsplitsers (Cumin Splitters, 2022) explores what it means be home: in a house, within oneself, and in relation to others.

Instagram: @lucasrijneveld

(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.

(The Netherlands, 1962) is a writer, literary journalist, publisher and, since 2023, director of Writers Unlimited. Her autobiographical debut The Baby Void – My Quest for Motherhood (2001) was an international success and has been published in more than 20 countries. De vrouw die zegt dat ze mijn moeder is (The Woman Who Claims She's My Mother, 2010) recounts adoption in a family history set against the backdrop of World War II. Uyterlinde worked as editor and publisher for several literary publishers, including De Bezige Bij and J.M. Meulenhoff. Between 2007 and 2015, she was also associated with Writers Unlimited, first as a producer and later as the festival's event coordinator. Since 2017 she has been publisher/director at World Editions, specializing in English-language translated literature from around the world. For the Amsterdam Public Library, she runs the Literary Salon, and for Women Inc., the literature series Read My Lips. She coordinated the literary part of the Guest of Honour program presenting Dutch and Flemish literature at the 2016 Frankfurt Book Fair.

is an idiosyncratic orchestra that dares to sing, dance, cry and laugh on its instruments. All from tradition, innovation, surprise and a touch of entertainment. Since its foundation in 2006, the orchestra has worked with many soloists, composers, choirs and theatre-makers. For instance, the blending of Eric Vloeimans' velvety tone with the cornetto showed that baroque is a sound of today. Together with Vloeimans, Holland Baroque received an Edison for the album Carousel. The tours with piano virtuoso Leszek Możdżer showed that even in a Baroque orchestra, a score can constantly change when the composer finds himself among the musicians while improvising. Cellist Giovanni Sollima also composed several pieces for Holland Baroque. The musical encounter between Wu Wei, worldwide one of the most important sheng-players of this moment, and Holland Baroque resulted in the CD Silk Baroque on the renowned label Pentatone. Holland Baroque became Reinbert de Leeuw's friend during the joint search for his truth of Bach's St Matthew Passion. Both the documentary and the integral recording Cherry Duyns made of it played in cinemas for months.

(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.

(Suriname, 1999) is a countertenor and prize- and audience award winner at the 2021 Princes Christina Concours. Arturo started solo singing at the age of 8 in the church in Suriname and was one of the first students of the Cathedral Choir School in Paramaribo. In 2017, he left for the Netherlands to continue his studies at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. Arturo is a versatile performer with a big love for Opera, Baroque- and Contemporary music. He made his opera debut with the Dutch National Opera en LOD muziektheater with the newly written opera The Girl, the Hunter and the Wolf by Vasco Mendonça. Other engagements include a tour to Suriname with ensemble Holland Baroque, a performance during the O. Festival, the Koorbiënnale 2022 as soloist with Stargaze ensemble and a main role in two contemporary operas at the Opera Forward Festival in Amsterdam. Next to that, he often performs music of black composers with his piano duo. With this duo, he performed in the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam and on tv in Podium Witteman.

(Suriname, 2001) began her musical training when she was nine years old at the Cathedral Choir School Suriname. That is where her passion for classical music began. Three years ago, Lucretia got the chance to come to the Netherlands. Here she began her studies at the School for Young Talent. There she discovered her love for Baroque music. She is now studying early music at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. Lucretia is also a member of the Nationaal Gemengd Jeugdkoor (National Mixed Youth Choir). She has taken master classes with Emma Kirkby, Michael Chance and Andrea Scholl. She travelled to Suriname with ensemble Holland Baroque to give a number of concerts with the children of the Cathedral Choir School.

(India, 1984) is a writer, critic and translator. She is editor of Extra Extra Magazine and teaches in the Creative Writing department at Artez University of the Arts. She writes regularly on literature (including for De Groene Amsterdammer, NRC and De Nederlandse Boekengids) and has published translations, essays and fiction.

(Waddinxveen) is deputy mayor and alderman for Poverty, Inclusion and Public Health in the municipality of The Hague. She worked as board secretary at Jeugdbescherming west, an institution for youth protection and youth probation. For GroenLinks, she was, among other things, support group member for the GroenLinks provincial parliamentary group from 2011 to 2015, representative for the GroenLinks municipal council group from 2016 to 2018, GroenLinks municipal group chair in 2021 and list leader for the 2022 municipal elections. Since September 2022, she has been alderman with the portfolios of poverty, emancipation and public health for GroenLinks.

(1957) has worked full-time as a French-Dutch translator since 2004. Her translation oeuvre comprises over 60 titles, including works by Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Maryse Condé, Philippe Besson and David Diop, and comics by Pénélope Bagieu and others. She taught at the School of Translation in Amsterdam for ten years, and during the same time taught an annual minor in literary translation at the Institute for Interpreting and Translation in Utrecht. She also chaired the literary translators' working group of the Vereniging van Letterkundigen (now the Auteursbond) for four years. In 2007, she received the Elly Jaffé Stipendium for promising beginning French-Dutch translators. In 2020, she won the European Literature Prize for Meer dan een broer, her translation into Dutch of International Booker Prize winning novel Frère d'âme (At Night All Blood is Black) by David Diop. For her translation of Philippe Besson's Arrête avec tes mensonges (Lie with Me) Martine Woudt was awarded the Euregio Literary Prize for Scholars 2021.

is a student of Congolese background on the European Studies course at De Haagse Hogeschool, who has passions for poetry, storytelling, African cuisine and music. He interviews writer Raoul de Jong during the Winternachten festival 2023, a programme by The Lighthouse / De Haagse Hogeschool and Writers Unlimited.

sees herself only as a writer. Whether one experiences her as a spoken word artist, storyteller or poet she leaves to the beholder. Her focus is mainly on putting her soul expression on paper. In her lyrics, she often expresses her relationship as a black woman to white society. Furthermore, in her works she tries to challenge people to think beyond the obvious.

is a Dutch-Surinamese visual artist of Hindustani (indentured Indian) descent. Rodjan was born and raised in Rotterdam and holds a BFA from St. Joost School of Art and Design. Rodjan primarily works in graphite and oil. Her work represents themes of migration, queerness and diaspora, and a significant part of her work focuses on portraiture: portraits of people of color, ancestral photographs and colonial postcards. She is committed to tell marginalized and invisible stories using traditional painting techniques. She spends her time painting between the Netherlands and the U.S. Her project KALA PANI: 1873 - 2023 is an ongoing series of oil paintings portraying indentured Indian women who were photographed as colonial objects in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on plantations in the Caribbean throughout Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana.