Leïla Slimani draws on her own family history for her trilogy of novels Le pays des autres, comprising Mathilde (The Country of Others, part 1), Regardez-nous danser (Watch Us Dance, part 2) and the personal J'emporterai le feu (I'll Take the Fire, part 3, to be published in English Spring 2026).

Slimani read from her work. In the interview with Rachida Lamrabet, she talked about her family saga. Singer Nana Adjoa paid musical tribute to Slimani, incorporating themes such as physicality and the emancipation of women into her choice of songs.

The Country of Others starts off after WWII during Morocco’s struggle for independence with French-born Mathilde and her Moroccan husband finding themselves caught in the crossfire. Part 2 takes place during the 1960s: on the cusp of adulthood, two biracial siblings search for their place in a newly independent Morocco brimming with both possibility and peril. Part 3 takes writer Mia to Morocco to explore her family history.

Leïla Slimani is an internationally renowned French-Moroccan writer. She won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2016 for Lullaby (US title: The Perfect Nanny) and was the International Booker Prize jury president in 2023. In her work, Slimani writes about female sexuality and autonomy; she denounces the oppression of female sexuality and the double sexual morality towards women.

Rachida Lamrabet is a fiction and theatre author, lawyer and teacher. Her debut novel Vrouwland (Women's Country; 2007) tells about migrant youths dreaming of a better life. 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. In her writings, 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.

Nana Adjoa is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She creates exciting, dreamy, soulful songs with electronic elements from trip hop and compact poetic lyrics. After years as a bass guitarist in the bands A Polaroid View and Sue the Night, and shows with singer Janne Schra, she decided to continue as a solo artist. This proved successful, as she performed in the US and in the Netherlands at Pinkpop, Best Kept Secret and Eurosonic, among others. De Volkskrant newspaper named her Pop Talent of the Year 2021.

Leïla Slimani about her family trilogy 'The Country of Others' was curated for Writers Unlimited Festival 2026 by Ilonka Reintjens. Meer details bekijken

Writers tell us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that sets their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, they would recommend the book to everyone. Interview: Anne Jonker.

Sheena Patel chose Rebecca, most famous novel (1938) by British author Daphne du Maurier and the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's film of the same name, as her favourite book. While travelling in the South of France, a shy young woman falls in love with the handsome, wealthy widower Maxim de Winter. The couple marry and move to Manderley, Maxim's country house on the coast of Cornwall. There, the less desirable aspects of Maxim's character come to the fore and it seems that the ghost of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca, still haunts every room. Meer details bekijken

Students from John Dewey College and Edith Stein College in The Hague bring The Voice of the City to life with their stories. They drew inspiration from writing workshops at school and a walk through The Hague, guided by Diann van Faassen. While they read their stories on the foyer stage, graphic designer Matthijs Sluiter illustrated a word or sentence from their stories on a projection screen, creating a unique interaction between words and images. Because, as one student put it: ‘The city is all of us. It's not about where you come from, it's about where we are now.’ Meer details bekijken

Writers Forugh Karimi and Maddy Stolk spoke about intergenerational trauma in relation to the festival theme Let's get physical, and read from their latest books. In her novel In mijn ogen draag ik wolken (In my eyes I carry clouds, 2025), Forugh Karimi wrote about the traces of trauma and human resilience. In her novel Waar wij altijd geweest zijn, Maddy Stolk tells about three generations: grandmother, mother and daughter. Ellen Deckwitz contributed by reading poetry from her work.

Forugh Karimi is an Afghan-Dutch writer and psychiatrist. At the age of 25, she fled to the Netherlands with her husband. She studied medicine at the University of Amsterdam and works as a psychiatrist. In 2022, she made her debut with the novel De moeders van Mahipar (The Mothers of Mahipar) followed in 2025 by her novel In mijn ogen draag ik wolken (In My Eyes I Carry Clouds) in which Karimi interweaves the story of 15-year-old Widá's flight with parts of Afghan history.

Maddy Stolk is a writer, columnist and second-generation child of Indonesian descent. The family novel Soedah, laat maar (Soedah, Never Mind, 2023) is Stolk's literary debut, in which she uses her own life as the basis for a haunting novel. It is a story about a life with Indonesian parents and about the never-ending grief that parents pass on to their children. Her new novel, Waar wij altijd geweest zijn (Where We Have Always Been), will be published in January 2026. This precursor to Soedah tells of three generations: grandmother, mother and daughter, each fighting for their autonomy and for their freedom in their own way.

Ellen Deckwitz is a poet, columnist, critic and presenter at literary events, including Writers Unlimited. Her collection Hogere natuurkunde (2019) is part travelogue, part myth and part testimony of persons whose roots trace back to the former Dutch East Indies. In 2022, Eerste hulp bij poëzie was published, a contagiously enthusiastic omnibus about enjoying poetry. Deckwitz is one of three critics of podcast Boeken FM and one of the presenters of Nooit meer Slapen, the VPRO's cultural radio programme.

Memory of the Body was curated for Writers Unlimited Festival 2026 by Mojdeh Feili. Meer details bekijken

Writers tell us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Sophia Blyden.

Pamela Sneed tells about Homegoing (2017) by Yaa Gyasi. Two half-sisters grow up in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and goes on to live a life of luxury. Esi is captured, sold into slavery and put on a boat to America. Homegoing tells the story of their descendants' lives over the next three hundred years. Yaa Gyasi shows the impact of slavery on multiple generations and moves freely through history – from tribal warfare and slavery in Ghana to the Civil War in America, and from the coal mines in the southern United States to the mass migration to Manhattan in the twentieth century. Meer details bekijken

In her translators' note accompanying Kim Hyesoon’s famous poetry collection Autobiography of Death, Don Mee Choi writes that the new tongue Kim invents in these poems can be called ‘expelled tongue’, a form of speaking coming out of ‘the long tradition of poetics and politics of expulsion’.

We asked five poets - Mia You, Don Mee Choi, Simone Atangana Bekono, Maxime Garcia Diaz and Gustaaf Peek - reading with Kim Hyesoon in this programme to think about what the idea of an expelled tongue might mean for poetry and for their own writing in particular.

The poets read from their latest collections or recited new work that was written especially for this program.

Expelled Tongue: Poetry in Search of New Languages was curated for Writers Unlimited Festival by Maarten van der Graaff, who will also introduce the poets. Meer details bekijken

Writers tell us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Sophia Blyden.

Simon(e) van Saarloos chose as favourite book Freshwater (2018), debut novel by Nigerian writer Akwaeke Emezi. It tells the semi-autobiographical story of the protagonist, known to the reader as 'The Ada'. The main narratorial voice of the novel is ogbanje, deities from Igbo religion, that occupy the Ada, and manifests in multiple distinct and characterised personalities, both helpful and antagonistic. Meer details bekijken

January 2026 marked exactly one hundred years since Virginia Woolf's essay On Being Ill was published. Why does illness play such a marginal role in literature, she wondered, lying in bed herself, forced to come to a standstill. Rob van Essen, Thomas Heerma van Voss, Mariken Heitman, Lieke Marsman, Lize Spit and Nadia de Vries recited from their (new) work. Trumpeteer Mark Nieuwenhuis performed during the musical interlude.

Why is illness — and the overwhelming mental changes that accompany it, the essential transition from “standing” to “lying down” — not as important a literary theme as love, struggle and jealousy? 'One would expect novels to be devoted to the flu; heroic poems to typhoid; odes to pneumonia; lyrical poetry to toothache.“ But no, says Woolf: ”[...] an account of this everyday drama of the body is lacking.'

A hundred years later, something seems to have changed: more and more writers and poets have, in Woolf's words, had the courage to look their physicality straight in the eye; they have thematised illness, found language for it and built a plot around it. In this programme, six of them follow the festival thema Let's get physical and present a literary account of the everyday drama of the body, in largely newly written texts.

Lyrics about toothache and odes to pneumonia was curated for Writers Unlimited Festival samengesteld by Jet Steinz, who also moderates it. Meer details bekijken

Meet up at the heart of the festival with a drink and a bite to eat. Host and DJ Francis Broekhuijsen creates the right atmosphere with his virtual Writers Unlimited Radio Show, and guides you through the extensive festival programme. You are welcome to request your favourite song to be played.

De Vries Van Stockum's bookshop is open all evening and richly stocked with books or cd's by festival authors and artists; you can also meet them there and have their work signed.

These authors will sign their books at the bookshop:
21:10-21:40 Leïla Slimani
21:15-21:30 Forugh Karimi
21:25-21:40 Maddy Stolk, Ellen Deckwitz, Lin An Phoa
22:20-22:40 Kim Hyesoon, Simone Atangana Bekono, Gustaaf Peek, Maxime Garcia Diaz
22:40-22:55 Thomas Heerma van Voss, Nadia de Vries, Mariken Heitman, Rob van Essen, Lize Spit, Lieke Marsman
23:35-23:50 Clarice Gargard, Simon(e) van Saarloos
23:40-23:55 José Eduardo Agualusa


Together with the Silent Eclectic Disco Show by The Hague DJ The Soulslammer, we will be dancing into the late night from 23:15. Don't want to dance but have a nice chat? Then there is plenty of room for that. No obligations, do as you like...that is the credo of the Writers Unlimited Festival heart! Meer details bekijken

Writers tell us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Sophia Blyden.

Forugh Karimi chose Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (Le deuxième sexe) as her favourite book: an essay, published as a two-volume book, which Simone de Beauvoir wrote in 1949 at the age of 41. It is one of the best-known works of feminism and is considered the founding text of the feminist movement in France. The philosopher describes how women are encouraged from an early age to make themselves small and to passively serve the desires of others. Meer details bekijken

Dance and drums may serve as instruments of protest. Curator and moderator Mojdeh Feili talked about dance as a form of resistance in Iran and engaged in conversation with authors whose recent books feature dance and drums as a central form of resistance.

José Eduardo Agualusa's novel Mestre dos batuques (Master of Drums, 2024) was published January 2026 in The Netherlands, titled Meester van de trommels.

The programme concluded with a dazzling dance performance by Sarah Safi Harb.

José Eduardo Agualusa has published an extensive body of work comprising novels, short stories and novellas. As an important literary voice and a leading author of the Portuguese-speaking world, his narratives, often rich in historical context, humor and references to his homeland Angola, also appeals to many readers outside that world. His novel is Mestre dos batuques (2024, Master of Drums) rewrites history and describes how drums played an important role in the resistance against the Portuguese colonisers. He also collaborated with Mia Couto on the screenplay for José Miguel Ribeiro's magical realist animated feature film Nayola (2022), which explores this theme.

Simone Atangana Bekono is a writer of prose and poetry. She made her debut with a collection of poems and letters titled Hoe de eerste vonken zichtbaar waren (How the first sparks became visible). Her debut novel Confrontaties (Confrontations) was highly praised and won the Hebban Debut Prize, the Anton Wachter Prize, and the Best Book for Young Adults Award. In 2022, Simone wrote the novella Zo hoog de zon stond for the Brabants Book Present. In 2024, her second poetry collection Marshmallow was awarded with the Jan Campert-prijs.

Sarah Safi Harb is a Raqs Sharqi dancer and teacher. She moved to The Netherlands in 2007, started teaching dance classes and founded The Dance Movement in 2010, through which she enthusiastically shares the rich cultural heritage of various dance styles from the MENA region with her students. Sarah specializes in Raqs Sharqi - literally oriental dance - as it developed first in Egypt and became known in the Western world as bellydance.

Mojdeh Feili is a writer, editor, book reviewer and programme maker. She writes for Het Parool, Oneworld, Storytel, Dipsaus and Lilith Magazine. In 2021, her story Zeemeermens was published in the collection Damn Horny and in 2020, her story Eindelijk als Alice was published in the collection De goede immigrant.

The Language of Dance and Drums was curated for Writers Unlimited Festival by Mojdeh Feili. Meer details bekijken

Writers tell us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Anne Jonker.

Maddy Stolk tells about Maria Dermoût's De tienduizend dingen (The Ten Thousand Things), a classic from 1955 that continues to inspire readers worldwide to this day. When the novel was published in the United States in 1958, it knocked Doctor Zhivago and Breakfast at Tiffany's off the bestseller lists. The novel has been reprinted countless times in Dutch. Maria Dermoût (Pekalongan, 1888 - Noordwijk aan Zee, 1962) was born on Java in what was then the Dutch East Indies, went to school in The Netherlands and travelled back and forth between the two countries throughout her life. Her years in the former Dutch East Indies inspired her to write various novels and stories, such as De tienduizend dingen, her masterpiece that became an international success. Meer details bekijken

How do inequality, resistance, queerness and power influence love and loving? Two authors who are friends and dare to disagree, take a stand in an intimate conversation.

In Powerful Love, writers Clarice Gargard and Simon(e) van Saarloos discussed, among other things, love as a political terrain: fraught, uncomfortable and inevitable. Their starting points were Gargard's work on resistance, inherited trauma, black history and (r)evolution, and Van Saarloos' thoughts on intimacy, queerness and power structures.

Powerful Love was an open conversation about ways of living together that do not look away from pain, but face it head-on and perhaps find a form of revolution precisely there.

Clarice Gargard is a journalist, writer and documentary maker. The documentary Daddy and the Warlord, about her father and the Liberian civil wars, which she made in collaboration with Shamira Raphaëla, won a Gouden Kalf for Best Short Documentary in 2019. Gargard's book Drakendochter (Dragon Daughter) is about her family history, migration, politics and society. In 2022, her documentary Ga terug en haal het (VPRO) about the timelessness of black resistance in the Netherlands, Suriname and Curaçao was released. Her book From Resistance to (R)evolution (2025) is about how to unleash a personal and social (r)evolution.

Simon(e) van Saarloos is a writer and curator. They are the author of Against Ageism. A Queer Manifesto (2023); Take ‘Em Down. Scattered Monuments and Queer Forgetting (2021) and Playing Monogamy (2019) as well as several books in Dutch: Herdenken herdacht (2019); Enz. Het Wildersproces (2018); the novel De vrouw die (2016); the collection of columns Ik deug / deug niet ( 2015) and Het monogame drama (2015).

Powerful Love was curated for Writers Unlimited Festival 2026 by Mojdeh Feili. Meer details bekijken

Writers tells us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Anne Jonker.

Lize Spit speaks about Oersoep by Bregje Hofstede, a book published in 2023 that is described as “autofiction”. Hofstede offers the reader a lyrical reading experience that sometimes feels more like a trip than a novel.Via labor pain, rugby, medieval mystics, and the inner life of a root sprout, Oersoep (The Original Soup) investigates the yearning for self-loss in a disenchanted era. Meer details bekijken

The Soulslammer unleashed the best beats on your headphones and got you into a deliciously swinging groove. Dance along at the Silent Disco! Meer details bekijken