Friday Night Unlimited

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A ‘grand evening’ full of literature, music and film in five auditoriums of Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag. One ticket gives access to all of the evening’s writers’ performances, debates, concerts, films and events. The conversations are Dutch or English spoken. Order your tickets now online! You can download the timeschedule of the evening here as pdf.

On Friday 20 January, the day of the inauguration of the US president, Winternachten presents during Friday Night Unlimited debates like Fiction in times of Fake with ao. Michel Faber, Dorit Rabinyan and Tomas Sedlacek; Europe in the eyes of refugees with ao. Tommy Wieringa, Baban Kirkuki and Salena Godden and This is (not) America with ao. Ian Buruma, Arnon Grunberg and Margriet Oostveen hosted by Stephan Sanders.

Fragments from hit series 'House of Cards' illustrate a conversation between film curator / journalist Gerlinda Heywegen and philosopher Tom Dommisse about political style and the representation of politics in fictional works. The screening of feature film Anomalisa by Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson (Grand Jury Award 2015, Venice film festival) is introduced by a conversation between Danish/Dutch philosopher Stine Jensen and Israeli writer Dorit Rabinyan about Rabinyan's novel Border Life, about love, identity, consciousness and Anomalisa.

During Friday Night Unlimited, among others, the following writers will speak:
Arnon Grunberg, writer of ao. ‘Blauwe Maandagen’, ‘Tirza’, ‘Moedervlekken’ en daily column ‘Voetnoot’ in the Volkskrant.
Ian Buruma, British-Dutch writer, japanologist and essayist. Publishes articles in The New York Times, The Guardian, NRC Handelsblad and recently his family history ‘Their Promised Land: My Grandparents in Love and War’.
Colson Whitehead, American novelist received the prestigious National Book Award 2016 for his recent 'The Underground Railroad', also recommended by president Obama and Oprah Winfrey. He also publishes in The New York Times, The New Yorker and Harper's.
Michel Faber, born in The Hague, famous Australian writer of ao. monumental novel ’ The Crimson Petal and The White’ and recently ‘The Book of Strange New Things’.
Dorit Rabinyan, Israeli writer of ao. ‘Persian Brides’ en ‘Borderlife’.
Tomas Sedlacek, prominent Czech economist, thinker, university lecturer and strategist for Czech bank CSOB; rose to international fame for his bestselling ‘Economics of Good and Evil’.
Tommy Wieringa, writer of awarded novels like ‘Joe Speedboot’ and ‘Dit zijn de namen’.
Hassan Blasim, film maker and writer; fled Iraq and now lives in Finland; published short stories collections ‘The Madman of Freedom Square’ and ‘The Corpse Exhibition’.
Baban Kirkuki writes poetry since he was 16, fled Iraq in 1999 and is now based in Utrecht. He published four collections of poems, among which ‘Licht onbekend’ in 2013.
Maarten van der Graaff, poet and essayist, co-founder of online poetry magazine Samplekanon and winner C. Buddingh Prize 2014 for ‘Vluchtautogedichten’. Published ‘Dood werk’ in 2015.
Salena Godden, author of 'Springfield Road', 'Fishing In The Aftermath' and 'Under The Pier' is one of Britain's foremost poets and regular headliner at literary and music festivals. Her new live spoken word album LIVEwire has attracted rave reviews since it's launch in 2016 including a 5 star review in The iPaper.

Information

Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 from 20:00 to 01:00 hrs
Location Theater aan het Spui & Filmhuis Den Haag

Tijdschema 20 January

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Time Location
20:00 - 21:10 Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1 Winternachten lecture: Fiction in Fake Times
20:00 - 20:40 Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2 The Dutch on the Couch: Stine Jensen
20:00 - 20:50 Filmhuis - zaal 1 Might is Always Right - Lessons from House of Cards
20:10 - 21:00 Theater aan het Spui - foyer Friday Night Wintercafé: Spot on Young Poets
20:20 - 20:40 Filmhuis - Studio A The Book of My Life: Bas Heijne
20:40 - 21:00 Filmhuis - Studio A The Book of My Life: Rodrigo Hasbún
20:45 - 21:55 Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2 The Secret Space - Poetry
20:55 - 22:00 Filmhuis - zaal 1 Film: Fleeing is No Longer Allowed
21:00 - 23:45 Theater aan het Spui - foyer Friday Night Wintercafé
21:10 - 21:30 Filmhuis - Studio A The Book of My Life: Ece Temelkuran
21:15 - 22:10 Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1 In the Mirror of Refugees
21:40 - 22:00 Filmhuis - Studio A The Book of My Life: Piotr Ibrahim Kalwas
22:00 - 22:55 Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2 Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
22:05 - 22:55 Filmhuis - zaal 1 In Search of the Real (Love) - Dorit Rabinyan about her novel Border Life and the film Anomalisa
22:15 - 22:55 Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1 This Is Not America (part 1)
22:20 - 22:40 Filmhuis - Studio A The Book of my Life: Baban Kirkuki
22:40 - 23:00 Filmhuis - Studio A The Book of My Life: Olga Grjasnowa
23:00 - 23:45 Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1 This Is Not America (Part 2)
23:00 - 00:30 Filmhuis - zaal 1 Film: Anomalisa
23:15 - 23:35 Filmhuis - Studio A The Book of My Life: Mircea Cărtărescu
23:45 - 01:00 Theater aan het Spui - foyer Dancing into the Friday Night

Line-up

Ian Buruma

(The Hague, NL, 1951) is a sinologist, japanologist, journalist and writer. Asian culture, democracy, religion, politics, Islamic fundamentalism, and the aftermath of World War II are returning subjects in his vast body of work. His essays have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, NRC and The New York Review of Books. Buruma grew up in The Hague, the child of a British mother and a Dutch father. His book Their Promised Land: My grandparents in times of love and war tells the story of his London-born, German-Jewish grandparents. He has been a professor of democracy, human rights and journalism in New York since 2003. He received the Erasmus Prize in 2008.
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Michel Faber

(1960, The Hague, NL) emigrated from the Netherlands to Australia in 1967. There, he studied Dutch, English, rhetoric and philosophy, became a nurse, and debuted as a writer in 1998. His 2002 best-seller The Crimson Petal and the White, about a young prostitute in Victorian London, constituted his international breakthrough. In Dickensian scenarios sprinkled with Freudian, post-Marxist and feminist themes he describes how she becomes a governess and, after being fired, learns to survive together with her pupil. In 2015 The Book of Wonderful New Things appeared; it is about the love between a minister, who travels to another planet, and his wife, who stays home and receives his letters. He wrote this best-seller while losing his wife Eva to cancer. He said he was done with writing, but did in fact publish Undying - A Love Story, a volume of poetry in memory of the love of his life.
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Maria Vlaar

(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.
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Jet Steinz

(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.
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Shervin Nekuee

(Iran, 1968) is a sociologist, writer and producer. He studied at the University of Utrecht and lives in The Hague. He wrote De Perzische paradox: verhalen uit de islamitische republiek Iran (The Persian Paradox: Stories from the Islamic Republic of Iran) in 2006, published by De Arbeiderspers. At age 19 he fled Iran because he refused to fight in the war against Iraq. In his professional life he is especially interested in the cultural and social aspects of multicultural society and political developments in the Middle East. Nekuee is a curator and programmer of the Winternachten international literature festival of The Hague, as well as artistic director of the Mystic Festival Rotterdam. He is also a member of the Grote Midden Oosten (Great Middle Eastern) Platform, an organisation that brings together experts from the Middle East living in The Netherlands for training, analysis and publications.
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Tomas Sedlacek

(Czech Republic, 1977) has enjoyed a kind of popstar status since his 2009 book The Economy of Good and Evil became an international best-seller. In it, he argues that the economy cannot be put into mathematical formulas but emerges from our culture. To understand the economy, his argument draws on myths, religion, theology, philosophy, psychology, literature and film. In a nutshell, the economy is about good and evil. In his homeland, Sedlacek has evolved into a phenomenon; a theatre production based on his work draws full houses at the National Theatre in Prague. As a child, Sedlacek lived for nine years in Finland and Denmark. At age 24, during his studies at the Karels University in Prague, he became economic advisor to then-President Vaclav Havel. The economist, who calls himself a "Christian anarchist," currently works as a strategist with the Czech merchant bank CSOB and as a university lecturer.
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Frank Westerman

(Emmen, NL, 1964) studied tropical agricultural engineering and was a correspondent for the Volkskrant and NRC Handelsblad newspapers in Belgrade and Moskow. He wrote about his time there in 1994's De Brug over de Tara (The Bridge over the River Tara). Together with journalist Bart Rijs he wrote 1997's  Srebrenica, Het zwartste scenario (Srebrenica, the Blackest Scenario). Ingenieurs van de ziel (Engineers of the Soul) was published in 2002, an inquiry into the foundations of the Soviet system and the role of writers. De Graanrepubliek (The Grain Republic), about the struggle between rich gentlemen farmers and communist workers in Groningen, was published earlier. Westerman's novel El Negro en ik (El Negro and Me), inspired by a preserved South African in a Spanish museum, was published in 2004 and won the Gouden Uil prize. His revised and augmented 2015 edition of De Slag om Srebrenica (The Battle for Srebrenica) won the Prinsjes Book Prize for best political book. Een woord een woord (One Word One Word) appeared in 2016, in which he tests the strength of free speech under the pressure of terrorist threats. As a child, he experienced the Molukkan train hijacking at close quarters; as a correspondent, he witnessed Chechen terror in Russia. Drawing on these gripping experiences, he describes a series of hostage dramas. In Zeven dieren bijten terug (Seven Animals Bite Back), Frank Westerman encounters seven magnificent creatures in the wake of Willem Barentsz. Along the way, the reader becomes captivated by the wondrous tale of seven polar animals and what they have to tell us at our latitude.
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Michaïl Sjisjkin

(Moscow, 1961) is one of the most prominent names in contemporary Russian literature. He is the author of widely acclaimed novels Pismovnik (Letter Book. 2010), Maidenhair (2005), Taking of Izmail (2000) and Larionov´s Memoirs (1994). Shishkin is admired as a refined stylist whose fiction engages Russian and European literary traditions and forges an equally expansive vision for the future of literature. Born in Moscow in 1961, Shishkin has worked as a teacher and journalist. His novels have earned him the three most prestigious Russian literary awards: the Russian Booker Prize in 2000, the National Bestseller Prize in 2005, and the Bolshaya Kniga (Big Book) Prize in 2006 and 2011. His works have been translated into thirty languages. In "My Russia" (to be released on April 23, 2024), translated from German by Jan Sietsma, he insightfully exposes the roots of Russia's long-standing problems and its relationship with the West. He passionately speculates about 'his Russia', where the portion of the population that stands for democratic values takes the lead.
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Hassnae Bouazza

(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).
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Mircea Cărtărescu

(Bucharest, 1956) is considered the greatest contemporary Romanian writer. His novel The Knowers is part one of the semi-autobiographical Orbitor trilogy that has been wholly translated into Dutch. In it, the writer transports us to the bygone world of his mother's ancestors - Romanianized Bulgarians, full of "ancient, pre-Christian terror." Part two, The Trophy, is set during the bombings of World War II and the Russian invasion. Part three, The Vast Mausoleum, describes the great changes that took place during the revolution in Romania. Cărtărescu's books form a chain of stories that link up by association, told in rich language. Reality alternates with magic. With its stormy streams of thought and crazy ideas, this saga elicits comparisons with James Joyce's Ulysses and Gabriel García Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. 

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Maarten van der Graaff

(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
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Stephan Sanders

(Haarlem, NL, 1961) is a columnist, presenter, essayist and writer. In 2015 he came out of the closet for the second time: he publicly acknowledged that he believes in god, even if this is "not done" in intellectual circles. Since mid-2016 he has been a regular columnist with the Volkskrant newspaper. In his 2007 book Zon, zee en oorlog (Sun, Sea and War) he describes experiences in places like Capetown, where he discovered that his biological father was South African. Sanders, who was adopted by Dutch foster parents, studied philosophy and political science and has written for various dailies and weeklies since 1982. He has published story and essay collections, novels, journalistic pieces, and the 2013 book Iets meer dan een seizoen (A Little More than One Season).
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Tommy Wieringa

(The Netherlands, 1967) spent a great deal of his youth in the Antilles. He had his breakthrough in 2005 with his novel Joe Speedboat. According to the media, his 2009 novel Caesarion earnied him a place among "The Greatest Ten of Dutch Literature." Dit zijn de namen (These are the Names) appeared in 2013, about the rough journey of a group of refugees. Wieringa gave music and poetry performances and made television programs. His essays and columns appear in various newspapers and magazines. Recent publications are the short story collections Dit is mijn moeder (This is my mother, 2019), Totdat het voorbij is (Until it is over, 2019), the columns collection Gedachten over onze tijd (Thoughts on our times, 2020), the novel Nirwana (2023) and the war chronicle Konvooi (Convoy, 2024). For this last novel he travelled with a convoy to Ukraine, that he supports with his activities for the Protect Ukraine organisation.
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Bas Heijne

(Nijmegen, NL, 1960) writes essays, short stories and plays, and is a columnist with the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad. He published the novels Laatste woorden (Last words) and Suez and received the Henriëtte Roland Holst Prize in 2005. In 2011's Moeten wij van elkaar houden, het populisme ontleed (Do We Have to Love One Another? Populism Dissected) Heijne shows how globalisation and individualism pave the way for populism. Angst en schoonheid (Fear and Beauty) was published in 2013, an essay about Dutch writer Louis Couperus, whom Heijne admires. In the same year his documentary about Couperus was broadcast. In 2015 he hosted the five-part documentary De volmaakte mens (The Perfect Human). In 2016 his essay Onbehagen – nieuw licht op de beschaafde mens (Discontent - new light on civilized man) was published. In 2017 Heijne received the P.C. Hooft Award for his essayistic works.
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Lucas Rijneveld

(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
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Salena Godden

is an icon of the British spoken-word scene, a beloved English poet and performer, a social and political activist, and a radio producer. In the early nineties she began publishing CDs and DVDs of her poetry readings and live performances; she continuously expands this series, such as with 2020's The Lockdown E.P. Her poems, essays and short stories have been included in dozens of anthologies. Since 2011 she has published the poetry collections Under the Pier and Fishing In The Aftermath - Poems 1994-2014, and the youth memoir Springfield Road. Pessimism is for Lightweights - 13 pieces of courage and resistance (2018) was inspired by protests and demonstrations about issues such as women's rights, justice, sexism, racism, immigration and identity. Her debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death was published in January 2021.
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Arnon Grunberg

(Netherlands, 1971) is one of the most successful Dutch writers, both at home and abroad. The prolific novelist, columnist, essayist, poet and scriptwriter lives and works mainly in New York. His fiction tackles themes such as religion, parenthood, love and relationships. His essays, columns, debates and performances seek out the polemics on topical issues. His debut novel and international breakthrough, Blauwe maandagen (Blue Mondays, 1994), was followed by award-winning and internationally successful novels such as Phantom Pain (2000), The Asylum Seeker (2003), Tirza (2006), Onze oom (Our Uncle, 2007), Huid en haar (Tooth and Nail, 2010), Moedervlekken (Birthmarks, 2016) and Bezette gebieden (Occupied Territories, 2020). Between 2000 and 2008 he also published novels and essays under the pseudonym Marek van der Jagt. The prize jury called the author "a writer unequalled in ambition, productivity and intellectual power".
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Dorit Rabinyan

(Israel, 1972) is an Israeli writer from a Jewish-Iranian family. Besides being a successful novelist, she writes poetry, created a children's book, and works as a presenter and scriptwriter for TV. Her third novel Grensleven (Border Life), which came out in the Netherlands in 2016, caused great controversy in Israel. A commission wanted to place the award-winning book about the love affair of a Jewish woman and a Palestinian man on Israeli high-school reading lists. But the Israeli Ministry of education prevented it because they felt it would encourage intercultural marriage. One year later, it was put on the list after all and has since become a best-seller. Her first two novels have also been published in Dutch: 1995's Perzische bruiden (Persian Brides) and 1999's Onze bruiloften (Our Weddings).
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Hassan Blasim

(1973, Baghdad) was named "perhaps the greatest living writer of Arabic fiction" by The Guardian in 2010. Both his debut, The Madman of Freedom Square, as well the 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize winner The Iraqi Christ comprise stories of war, migration and refugee trauma. Due to his taboo-busting writing style he has also been called the James Joyce of Arabic literature. For a long time his work was only available digitally and was immediately banned upon publication in Jordan. In 2004, Blasim landed in Finland after years of drifting around as a refugee; he'd ended up in difficulties in Saddam Hussein's Iraq after shooting the film The Wounded Camera in the Kurdish north of the country. His work has been or is being translated into 20 languages. In March 2016 his first play premiered in a Helsinki theatre. The first Dutch translation of his work, the collection Lijkententoonstelling will appear during the festival.
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Piotr Ibrahim Kalwas

(1963, Poland) sang in a punk band, worked as a journalist, and wrote a popular TV series before converting to Islam in 2000 and moving to Egypt with his wife and son. One of his reasons for going to live in Alexandria was his increasing annoyance at the worsening social behaviour in Poland. The low cost of living and the agreeable climate also played a role. He was also curious about how he, as a Western cosmopolitan, would find life in a Muslim country. He hasn't regretted his choice although he does find fault with life in his new home. His book Egypte Haram halal is very critical about traditionalism in Egypt, as well about the legally forbidden but still common practice of female circumcision. In interviews, too, he denounces traditions and pleads for a tolerant and open Islam.
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Baban Kirkuki

Kirkuk, 1974) is an Iraqi-Dutch poet and writer. In 1999 he fled Iraqi Kurdistan because he refused to write propaganda poems for Saddam Hussein's regime. He now lives in Utrecht. He debuted in the Netherlands in 2006 with Op weg naar Ararat (En Route to Ararat), 29 poems about Kurdistan, war and fear, but also about mountains, winter and the desert. His second poetry volume, Lontananza (2009), focuses on his yearning for his native land and for a place in his new homeland. His two identities also feature prominently in his two following collections, Territorium (2011) and Licht onbekend (2013).
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Joke Hermsen

(Middenmeer, NL, 1961) is a writer and philosopher specialized in female authors and philosophers. Hermsen debuted as a novelist with Het dameoffer (The Lady's Sacrifice, 1998), about a daughter who discovers her mother's love affair. She followed up with the historical novel Tweeduister (Twilight) about T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf. Her successful volume of 2009 essays Stil de tijd - Pleidooi voor een langzame toekomst (Stop Time: Plea for a slow future) was reprinted 20 times. This was followed by, among others, the novel Blindgangers (Duds, 2014), the essay Melancholie van de onrust (Melancholy of Unrest, 2017), the novel Rivieren keren nooit terug (Rivers Never Turn Back, 2018) and the essay Het tij keren met Rosa Luxemburg en Hannah Arendt (Turning the Tide with Rosa Luxemburg and Hannah Arendt, 2019).
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Margriet Oostveen

(1968, Den Bosch, NL) debuted in 2009 with Botox op K Street (Botox on K Street) about the city of Washington, which she wrote after a years-long stay in the US. She ignored Congress and the embassies and sought out small events and unknown people, which perhaps tell us much more about a country than the things that make the global news.
She attended the funeral of a gangster, discovered the life of female night-shift cooks, and attempted to understand the self-hatred of black children. Back in the Netherlands, she went to work in similar fashion for NRC Handelsblad newspaper: instead of sitting behind her desk she went out to talk to people who normally didn't appear in its pages. Her columns are collected in Knus (Snug). In 2014 she moved to the Volkskrant newspaper.
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Spoken Beat Night

Spoken word artist Jeannine Valeriano and her team of (guest) musicians and drawing artists - together Spoken Beat Night - create cross-over concerts in which jazz, spoken word, world music, readings, live animation and funky beats merge. The two artists do live sketches, which are personal and imagistic interpretations of the text. Spoken Beat Night plays with language; the team, plus top musicians from the comopolitan world of improvised music, pull the writers' words into the world of sound. With Jeannine Valerio (vocals), Maarten Ornstein (bass clarinet, saxophone and electronics), guitarist Paul Pallesen, illustrator and animator Floor de Goede, drawing artist Hans van de Meulengraaf, cellist Jörg Brinkmann and – in Saturday Night Unlimited - as a guest Nizar Rohana on oud.
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Corina Duijndam

1983, Ter Aar, NL) is a sociologist, lecturer, researcher and essayist. She spent a large part of her adult life living and working amid Muslim youth in so-called underprivileged neighbourhoods. She participated in all kinds of social projects, such as homework assistance and cultural afternoons, and gave English lessons. She recorded her experiences in Amsterdam and Paris in De gekleurde werkelijkheid (Coloured Reality). She ended up a "foreigner" in a Parisian banlieue and shared a flat with an African youth, Oneboy. After that she lived in Osdorp. Currently, she has been contracted by the City of The Hague to research the level of trust that youth in the Schilderswijk (an immigrant area) have in the police. For the VU, she is studing the interaction between radical Islam and anti-Islam groups. Her research shows that Dutch group dynamics are much more determined by ethnicity and religion than in France, and that groups hold strong prejudices about one another.
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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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Tom Dommisse

(1958) is a philosopher and lecturer on the esthetics of music and cultural philosophy at the Royal Conservatory. Since his time as a university researcher, he has worked in the border areas of philosophy where it encounters literature, theatre and politics. He has published on themes of esthetics, metaphysics, political philosophy and the philosophy of law. According to Dommisse, all philosophy again faces the challenge of linking an academic level of thought with the need to carefully bring it into the public sphere. Theatre companies seek him out for wanted and unwanted dramaturgical advice. He is involved with the work of Thomas Mann and Pasolini and nurtures a passion for Shakespeare. Together with STET English Theatre, he organized a Shakespeare festival in 2016 and 2018.
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Stine Jensen

(Denmark, 1972) is a Danish/Dutch philosopher, literary scholar and writer. Her initial work dealt with love and evil in person-to-animal and person-to-person relationships; now she turns her gaze inside with Go East, her quest for spirituality, and Mag ik je wat vragen over lust en liefde (Can I ask you something about lust and love), a workbook to increase happiness.Turkse Vlinders (Turkish Butterflies, 2005) explored her own experience with intercultural love affairs. Leugenaars (Liars, 2006) was a philosophical inquiry into Latin lovers, crooks and other shady characters. The cultural differences between East and West formed the leitmotif of her first novel, Dokter Jazz (Doctor Jazz, 2009). For television, she made a series about philosophy and Scandinavia. Her debut children's book, Lieve Stine, weet jij het? (Dear Stine, Do You Know?) won the 2015 Silveren Griffel award.
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Rodrigo Hasbún

(Cochabamba, 1981) is a Bolivian writer considered a major talent in Latin American literature. Hasbun's international breakthrough came in 2015 with his second novel Los afectos, which won him a PEN Award. In 2016 the novel appeared in Dutch translation with the title Woeste jaren (Savage Years). It's a gripping story partly based on fact about an eccentric nazi family living in Bolivia in the fifties and sixties.  Before he started writing, Hasbun was a guitarist in a grunge band; he says that music taught him the importance of rhythm to a good book. He debuted in 2006 with the story collection Cinco, an immediate smash success. One of its stories was made into a film and another reworked for the theatre.
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Francis Broekhuijsen

(The Netherlands, 1970) is a presenter, producer, actor and voice-over artist specializing in music, literature, arts and culture. After graduating as actor from the Toneelschool Amsterdam he was a member, among others, of the ensemble of the Nationale Toneel. He was a presenter at Amsterdam-based broadcaster AT5 and a radio producer with the KRO on national network NPO Radio 1. He narrates audio books, and was shortlisted for the Storytel Award 2019 for Best Audio Book with his reading of Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer's novel Grand Hotel Europa. Until last year, he presented on radio station Sublime the daily morning show Sublime Sunrise, the Instagram poetry programme Sublime Smooth and evening show The Sublime Experience. In 2025 he wrote and hosted the tv-series Kringlopen met Francis on regional Dutch broadcaster NH. Broekhuijsen works for Writers Unlimited as festival curator and presenter.

Go to the website of Francis Broekhuijsen
Instagram: @francisbroekhuijsen
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Sana Valiulina

(Estonia, 1964) grew up in Tallinn in a family of non-religious Islamic Tatars. She studied Norwegian language and literature in Moscow and moved to Amsterdam in 1989. In 2000 her debut the novel Het Kruis (The Cross) appeared, about life in a student flat in Moscow. In 2002 it was followed by the anthology of novellas Vanuit nergens met liefde (From Nowhere with Love). For her monumental epos Didar en Faroek (2006), about WOII and its aftermath in the Soviet Union she was nominated for the Libris Literatuur Prijs. This love story about two people who are separated by war and terror but eventually succeed in finding each other again, is partly based on her own family history. ‘The novel is reminiscent of the great Russian narrative tradition (...) a monument’, wrote the weekly De Groene Amsterdammer. Following it she aimed her arrows at Dutch society writing Honderd jaar gezelligheid (Hundred Years of Cosiness; 2010). In this novel she wonders what it means to be young in a country where cosiness has become a national obsession. Recently, she published the acclaimed Kinderen van Brezjnev (2014) followed by Winterse Buien of ben ik wel geïntegreerd genoeg (2016).
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Michel Krielaars

(Netherlands, 1961) is a writer, journalist and, since 2012, Editor-in-Chief of the literature section of NRC newspaper. He studied history and Russian at the University of Amsterdam. Krielaars has written novels, a short-story collection, and various books about Russian history. Het brilletje van Tsjechov (Through Chekov's Glasses) was published in 2014, a report of his travels through Russia in the footsteps of the famous author. His book Reizen door Rusland (Travels through Russia) earned high praise and won the 2015 Bob den Uyl Prize. Alles voor het moederland (Everything for the Mother Country, 2017) tells about Stalin's reign of terror in the times of Isaak Babel and Vasili Grossman.
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Olga Grjasnowa

(Baku, 1984) emigrated at age 12 from Azerbaijan to Germany with her Jewish family. She studied in Göttingen and Leipzig and was a 2014 writer-in-residence in Amsterdam. Her first, partly autobiographical novel, 2012's Een Rus is iemand die van berken houdt (A Russian is Someone who Loves Birches) is primarily about migration, according to critics, while Grjasnowa herself also wanted to bring exclusion and racism to light. In the novel, an Azerbaijani flees to Germany because of the war. After the death of her boyfriend she goes to Israel, but doesn't fully feel at home anywhere. The writer experiences this herself: even though she has a German passport, she must always account for where she comes from. Her second novel, 2014's De juridische schimmigheden van een huwelijk (The Legal Shadiness of Marriage) is about an explosive love triangle between a dancer and her husband and another woman.
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Colson Whitehead

(New York, 1969) is seen as one of the most ambitious, ground-breaking contemporary American writers. His latest novel, The Underground Railway, was chosen for Oprah Winfrey's 2016 Book Club Selection. Obama put it on his summer reading list. November 2016 Whitehead received the National Book Award, the most prestigious American literary prize, for his novel. The book is Whitehead's alternative history of slavery in America. Slave Cora flees via the Underground Railway (a clandestine network of anti-slavery activists) to the free north as a macabre Alice in Wonderland. The New York Times drew wrote that the book helps not only to understand America's past but also contemporary times. Whitehead debuted in 1999 with The Intuitionist, named the best novel of the year by Esquire magazine. Besides six novels, he has also written two non-fiction books, and regularly writes for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Granta and Harper's.
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Denise Jannah

(Suriname, 1956), a Dutch jazz singer and voice teacher of Surinemese origin, has performed around the world for Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton, among others. From 2013 to 2016 she toured the Netherlands with Ella!, a production that will be staged again in 2017, the centenary of Ella Fitzgerald's birth. Jannah won two Edisons and appeared seven times at the North Sea Jazz Festival. She was the first Dutch performer to land a record contract with the prestigious jazz label Blue Note. Jannah has performed with musicians such as Chick Corea, Frank Boeijen, the Rosenberg Trio and Willem Breuker. For this festival in 2002, she set poems to music from the Netherlands, Suriname, the Antilles, South Africa and Indonesia. She took the same program to literary festivals in Utrecht, Suriname, the Antilles, South Africa and Indonesia. In 2015 she toured Russia and appeared in Dutch theatres in a musical production about the battle for emancipation of two women in Suriname.



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Ton van de Langkruis

(Netherlands, 1957) was, for 25 years, director and programmer of Writers Unlimited which he founded in 1995. After studying English Language at Leiden University and Theatre Sciences at Utrecht University, he worked in theatres as a dramaturge, director, critic and tour organiser. In 1992 he organised the Samuel Beckett Festival in The Hague, a collaboration of the city's arts organizations. In 1995 he organised the Indië/Indonesië Festival (Dutch East Indies/Indonesia Festival), which brought together the arts of Indonesia and the Netherlands to celebrate the Republic of Indonesia's 50th anniversary. This event, ending with the Indische Winternacht (East-Indies Winternight), was the start of the Winternachten international literary festival The Hague. Under his guidance, Writers Unlimited and Winternachten festival grew out to become a both nationally and internationally reputed platform where writers, poets, scientists and journalists from all over the world met their audiences for conversations, recitations and performances about culturally diverse, social, literary, scientific and other topical themes.
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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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Margot Dijkgraaf

(The Netherlands, 1960) is a literary critic, writer, curator, interviewer, debate leader and "ambassador between France and the Netherlands in the field of literature", as a French ambassador once said. She has been writing about literature for some 30 years, mainly for the NRC daily. She published books on French and European literature, on Hella S. Haasse and Cees Nooteboom. Her In de voetsporen van mijn grootvader (2021) is an autobiographical search for her literary genes. Before that, she published Met Parijse pen. Literaire omzwervingen (in collaboration with photographer Bart Koetsier, 2020), which takes readers to Paris for walks in the footsteps of famous Dutch and French writers. She was joint artistic curator of the Netherlands' Guest of Honour role at the 2024 Leipzig Book Fair with German journalist Bettina Baltschev.

Go to the website of Margot Dijkgraaf
Instagram: @margotdijkgraaf
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Christine Otten

(Deventer, NL, 1961) is a writer, performer and theatre producer. Her 2004 breakthrough came with De laatste dichters (The Last Poets), nominated for the Libris Literature Prize. This novel about the lives of four black Americans who became famous as "The Last Poets" was adapted for theatre. We hadden liefde, we hadden wapens (We Had Love, We Had Weapons), Otten's swirling 2016 novel, is about the life of the black citizen's rights activist Robert F. Williams in America, and about taking a stand for the right to be who you are, regardless of the consequences. Een van ons (One of Us, 2020), her novel about lifelong prisoner Luc was performed as a theatre monologue. In her novel Als ik je eenmaal mijn verhaal heb verteld (Once I told you my story, 2024), Anir tries to build a new life ‘outside’ after 12 years of detention. The Blocknotes Foundation, co-founded by Otten in 2020, uses creative writing for empowerment and talent development of people in prison.
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Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer

(Netherlands, 1968) is a classicist and writer. He has more than 40 titles to his name, including poetry, novels, short stories, plays, scientific studies, translations and anthologies. His work has earned many nominations and prizes, including the 2014 Libris Literature Prize for his novel La Superba, an ode to the city of Genoa, where he lives and works. In 2016 he published Brieven uit Genua (Letters from Genoa), an autobiography in letter format and the counterpart to La Superba, which also discusses the publication of the novel. Grand Hotel Europa (2018), a book about love in times of mass tourism, nostalgia, European identity, and a part of the world that has become a museum, was nominated for the 2019 Libris Literature Prize and translated into 10 languages. Pfeijffer never eschews debate, expressing himself in essays, columns and TV programs.
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Beri Shalmashi

(Paris, 1983) is a Dutch writer and filmmaker with roots in Iranian Kurdistan. She writes edgy columns for Volkskrant.nl in which she reveals an authentic voice. For example, she refused to support Nasrdin Dchar's Ieder1 movement. "I've have too much trauma left over from growing up in the Netherlands, too many experiences of being the Other." Shalmashi moved to Iraqi Kurdistan in 2012 to teach at the university of Erbil and to work on new films. She wrote about how the refugee crisis and the war with IS increasingly disrupted life in the city. Ultimately she returned to Amsterdam in 2015. Shalmashi studied at the Film Academy in Amsterdam and has made various films. The television film Mama, a collaboration with Sanne Vogel, was nominated for a Golden Kalf in 2010. The short film Het front (The Front), about a young woman who wants to go and fight for IS and based on a script by Shalmashi, was shown at NFF 2016.
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Rodaan Al Galidi

(Iraq, 1971) fled his country in 1998 after completing architecture studies, was given asylum in the Netherlands and settled there legally in 2007. Since then he has published poetry, novels and collections of his columns. He received the 2000 El Hizjra literature award and the 2011 Literature Prize of the European Union. In 2013 he published Liever niet, antwoordt de liefde (Maybe Not, Was Love's Reply), an anthology of refreshing love poetry. His novel Hoe ik talent voor het leven kreeg (Two Blankets, Three Sheets) tells of his experiences as an asylum seeker in the Netherlands. Al Galidi published the short story collection Duizend-en-een-nachtmerries (A Thousand and One Nightmares) in 2017 and a poem collection Neem de titel serieus (Take the title seriously) in 2018.
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Sjoerd de Jong

(Rotterdam, NL, 1960) is the ombudsman of NRC Handelsblad newspaper. He studied philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. From 1983 to 1985 he created the faculty publication Cimedart. In 1990 he started working for NRC Handelsblad, first as copy editor, then as coordinator and assistant editor-in-chief of the national affairs section. He was involved in setting up the paper's website. From 1999 to 2005 he headed the Books section and wrote an opinion column. In 1989 he co-wrote with "student leader" Maarten van Poelgeest the latter's premature memoir, Zo doen we dat dus (That's How We Do It). He also published mini-biographies of Richard Burton, Marcel Proust and Bob Dylan, and illustrated Maarten Doorman's animal stories for the collection Elk beest zijn vet (Every Animal's Stripes). A collection of De Jong's columns was published in 2005 under the title Spijtwraak (Regret-Revenge).
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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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Farah Karimi

(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).
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Louise O. Fresco

(Meppel, NL, 1952) is a writer, agricultural scientist and columnist. In her novels De Kosmopolieten (The Cosmopolitans, 2003), De Tuin van de Sultan van Rome (The Roman Sultan's Garden, 2005) and De Utopisten (The Utopians, 2007) idealism, power, and friendship play important roles. Subsequently, she published Nieuwe Spijswetten (New Laws for Food, 2006), Hamburgers in het paradijs. Voedsel in tijden van schaarste en overvloed (Hamburgers in paradise. Food in times of shortage and abundance, 2012), Kruisbestuiving. Over kennis, kunst en het leven (Pollination. About knowledge, art and life, 2014) and various others works among which Verraad, Verleiding en Verzoening (Treason, Temptation and Reconciliation, 2010, with Helen Westerik). Fresco's Paradijs (Fresco's Paradise, 2013) is a six-part documentary TV-series broadcast by Human, published with an accompanying text. In 2014 she was appointed chair of the executive board at Wageningen University and Research. Her latest novel De Idealisten (The Idealists) will be published late January 2018.
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Ofran Badakhshani

is a poet who fled from Afghanistan and owner of wine shop De Filosoof located in the Papestraat in The Hague, a place where wine, philosophy and poetry embrace. Badakshani currently prepares for his graduation on the subject of moral philosophy. He is an active member of political party VVD and various student organisations of the Amsterdam-based universities VU and UVA. He is chairman of Afghan young people's organisation Khorasan, member of the board at VON and has executed various projects of the Changemakers Programme regarding honour-related violence, LGBT emancipation and forced mariages. These activities do not only focus Afghans: he also worked with Iranians, Moroccans and Somali young people. Khorasan's activities do not only take place in The Netherlands, but also in Germany, UK, Belgium and France.
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Omar Munie

is a succesful designer and entrepreneur who fled his home country of Somalia because of civil war at age nine, coming to the Netherlands with his brothers and sister. At a young age Munie discovered that he preferred to learn a creative trade. He went to fashion trade school, developing his talents and designing his first bags which he sold directly to his classmates. He set up his business Omar Munie Clothing while he was still studying. An award as MBO-student of the Year came with 5 years of free studio space in The Hague. Currently, his exclusive, handmade bags are popular worldwide. In his Omar Munie Flagship Store, located on the Noordeinde in The Hague, he sells bags, accessories and items produced in collaboration with other designers; in his sustainable studio 'Dream Factory', also located in The Hague, he offers people who have difficulty finding a job a new chance and in his book Leef je Droom (Live Your Dream) he motivates young people to finish their education.
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Balout Khazraei

grew up in an artistic family in Iran and learned early on to express herself in musical and artistic language. In Iran she studied classical Persian music, and in the Netherlands at the Art Academy and later Pabo. Her working method emphasizes creating space for creative and artistic communication between people and cultures. With much enthusiasm, she teaches Dutch to refugees at the Hamrah Institute in Rotterdam. In recent years she has organized various cultural and culinary festivals. As a curator she has worked on exhibitions by refugees. Her most recent exhibition about and with refugees, their art and way of thinking at SeedZ-Rotterdam was opened in 2016 by Mayor Ahmen Aboutaleb.
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Hanna Bervoets

(The Netherlands, 1984) is a writer of novels, screenplays, plays, short stories and essays on media and popular (online) culture. Bervoets made her debut in 2009 with Of hoe waarom (Or How Why), followed two years later by Lieve Céline (Dear Céline), which was awarded the Opzij Literature Prize. A year later, the bestseller Alles wat er was (Everything That Was) was published, followed by Efter (2014), Ivanov (2016), Fuzzie (2017) and Welkom in het Rijk der zieken (Welcome to the Kingdom of the Sick) (2019). In 2017, Bervoets won the BNG Bank Literature Prize for Ivanov, and in the same year she also won the Frans Kellendonk Prize for her entire oeuvre. In 2021, her first collection of short stories, Een modern verlangen (A Modern Desire), was published and awarded the J.M.A. Biesheuvel Prize. In 2025, her tenth novel, Geld verdienen (Earning Money), was published. When Ellie and Freya each need money for their own reasons, they decide to take control of the stock market. After all, don't they deserve to be rich too?

Go to the website of Hanna Bervoets
Instagram: @hannabervoets
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Felix Rottenberg

(Amsterdam, 1957) is chairman of LIRA, a Dutch collective management organization (CMO) for (screen)writers, translators and freelance journalists. He also chairs the Amsterdam Kunstraad, a permanent and independent advisory body of the Amsterdam City Council as well as Nieuw Genootschap van Nederlandse Componisten (New Association of Dutch Composers, Nieuw Geneco). He founded and was director of political and cultural debate centre de Balie in Amsterdam and was chairman of Dutch political party Partij van de Arbeid.
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Carolina Trujillo

(Montevideo, 1970) in her novels deals with the big issues of South America, the continent where she was born. Trujillo came to the Netherlands at age six. After the end of military rule she returned to her fatherland at age fifteen. There her first novella in Spanish was published and awarded a prize. She returned to the Netherlands to study at the Amsterdam film school. In 2002 her Dutch debut followed, De Bastaard van Mal Abrigo (The Bastard of Mal Abrigo), about two little boys from a poverty-stricken cocaine village, who eventually become president and minister of defence. This time she won the Marten Toonder/Geertjan Lubberhuizen prize. De terugkeer van Lupe García (The Return of Lupe García, 2009) is about a woman returning to her native country in South America to make a documentary about the guerrilla struggle there. This novel was nominated for the AKO Literature Prize and won the BNG Literature Prize. In 2014 she published De zangbreker, and her latest book Vrije radicalen (Free radicals) will appear January 2017.
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Atte Jongstra

(Terwispel, 1956) is a prolific prose writer, poet, critic and essayist. His first publication was the anthology De multatulianen on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Multatuli Society. De psychologie van de zwavel (The Psychology of Sulphur, 1990) was awarded with the Geertjan Lubberhuizen Prize. After that many titles followed, among others Cicerone (1992), Het huis M. Memoirs of a Speaker (The House M. Memoirs of a Speaker) (1993), Familieportret (Family Portrait) (1996), Disgenoten (Table Companions) (1998). The novels fit into the 26-volume 'modern memory lexicon' the writer is working on. His recent novels Worst (Sausage, 2014) and De aardappelcentrale (Potatoe Center, 2019) deal with opportunism in times of war. Jongstra was awarded the Constantijn Huijgens Prize 2016 for his body of work.
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Aad Meinderts

(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).
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Joris Wijsmuller

(Rosmalen, NL, 1965) has been the SWDC councillor for urban development, housing, sustainability, and culture for the city of The Hague since 2014. From 1998 to 2014 he was a councillor and floor leader of the Hague City Party. Wijsmuller studied at the Polytechnic Institute for Photography in The Hague and worked at the World Wide Video Centre (the former Kijkhuis), among other jobs.
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Karin Amatmoekrim

(Suriname, 1976) debuted with Knipperleven (2004), followed by Wanneer wij samen zijn (When We Are Together, 2006), based on the history of her Javanese-Surinamese family. Her novel Het gym (The Gymnasium, 2011) describes Sandra, a Surinamese outsider, holding her own among preppy white girls. De man van veel (The Man of Much, 2013) is based on the life of the Surinamese national hero and writer Anton de Kom, and was followed by her memoir Tenzij de vader (Unless the Father, 2016), a painfully honest report of getting to know her father at age 22. Her PhD thesis on the late author Anil Ramdas (University of Utrecht) was published as the biography In welk land leef ik eigenlijk? (What Kind of Country Do I Actually Live in?, 2023). She regularly publishes stories, columns and opinion pieces.
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Jeroen van Kan

(Hoorn, 1968) is a journalist who started his career at local radio station Amsterdam FM; after that he became editor of De Digitale Stad, hosted AT5's newshow and talkshows. Then he returned to making radio: first at BNR Nieuwsradio and afterwards at VPRO's programme De Avonden which he presented every Monday and Friday. Since 2015 Van Kan is radio news show host at national public broadcaster NOS; he also can be heard as voice over during TV news shows. Spring 2016, he hosted literary TV programme Boeken. Next to this, Van Kan is active as editor of literary magazines. Until 2007 he was part of the editorial board of De Tweede Ronde. Afterwards he moved to literary magazine Tirade. Together with Wim Brands he is co-editor of Nederland. Een objectief zelfportret in 51 voorwerpen (The Netherlands. An objective autoportrait in 51 objects), a collection of texts about typically Dutch objects by the same number of writers.
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Roos Laan

(1992) is a graphic designer in The Hague, where she graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 2014. Her work often features linguistic elements to deliver a message. Samen dichten (Writing Poetry Together), her graduation project, is a poetry machine whereby man and computer can enhance each other. The user types a short story, and the machine makes a poem out of the story's words. The generated poem can again be altered by clicking on words. In this way, a poem is created that neither the specific user nor the computer could have written one their own. If the user is satisfied, he or she can print the poem to take away and share.
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Malini Subramaniam

(India) is an award-winning Indian investigative journalist and contributor to the independent news website scroll.in.
Until recently, Subramaniam was based in Bastar, Chhattisgarh, where she sought to shine a light on the plight of those living in a region rocked by insecurity and Maoist insurgency, reporting on the alleged torture of journalists, allegations of sexual violence committed by the security forces in Bijapur, and on alleged human trafficking, among other topics. In February of this year, after a vigilante group began protesting outside her home, demanding, “Death to Malini Subramaniam” and attempted to incite her neighbours to attack her home. Later the same evening unidentified assailants threw stones at her house. Subramaniam and her family were forced to leave their home after the local authorities not only failed to defend her, but intimidated her maid and put pressure on her landlord to evict her. Subramaniam’s experience has exposed the situation in the state to international scrutiny. Journalists in Chhattisgarh are under sustained pressure from the authorities and rebels alike. A recent fact-finding mission by the Editors Guild of India reports that not one journalist feels safe. At least two other journalists have fled the state, while four have been detained by the authorities. Subramaniam is the recipient of CPJ (Committee to protect journalists) 2016 International Press Freedom Award.
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Delphine Lecompte

(1978) after the publication of her first book Kittens in the boiler was baptised by English critics as ‘a female Charles Bukowski’. Lecompte lives to write and indulge in fantasies. ‘I just don’t seem to be able to structure my days with meat and chips. Writing always comes first. Before eating and washing. Her admission into a psychiatric hospital was right up her alley. She really liked letting her imagination run its free course and take the people in charge of her case on a free ride. Her first Dutch-language collection De dieren in mij (The animals within me; 2009) won the C. Buddingh prize for new poetic talent. In it Lecompte describes her often morbid existence. ‘Lies exclusively, so personal that it gets embarrassing,’ she said about it herself. In her poems and in her life animals, magic and fairy tales play an important role. Subsequently she published the succesful collections Blinde gedichten (Blind poems, 2012), Schachten en amuletten (Shafts and amulets, 2013) and Dichter, bokser, koningsdochter (Poet, boxer, princess, 2015) that has been nominated for the VSB Poëzieprijs.
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Simone Atangana Bekono

(The Netherlands, 1991) is a writer of prose and poetry. She has written columns and essays for various newspapers and magazines and is an editor at the literary magazine De Revisor. In 2016, she graduated from the Creative Writing program at ArtEZ with a collection of poems and letters titled Hoe de eerste vonken zichtbaar waren (How the first sparks became visible). In 2018, the collection was awarded the Poëziedebuutprijs Aan Zee. 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.
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Mira Feticu

(Romania, 1973) is a writer, poet and columnist. Her first collection of poetry was published in 1993, after which she devoted herself to prose. In 2005, she moved to The Hague with her Dutch husband André. There she decided to write in Dutch rather than Romanian. In her novels, she has successfully developed a personal and candid writing style. Her publications include Lief kind van mij (My Dear Child, 2012), De ziekte van Kortjakje (Kortjakje's Illness, 2013), Tascha. De roof uit de Kunsthal (Tascha: The Robbery at the Kunsthal, 2015), Al mijn vaders en Picasso's keerzijde (All My Fathers and Picasso's Other Side, 2019), and Liefdesverklaring aan de Nederlandse taal (Declaration of Love to the Dutch Language, 2021). After the loss of André, she wrote her latest novel Gewone Hollandse jongens (Ordinary Dutch Boys, 2025) about grief, physical desire and the search for stability in the company of others. Her articles and columns appear in Tirade, De Groene Amsterdammer and Den Haag Centraal, among others.

Go to the website of Mira Feticu
Instagram: @mirafeticu
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Hannah van Binsbergen

(1993) debuted in 2016 with the poetry collection Kwaad gesternte (Born Under a Bad Sign), which immediately led to a nomination for the 2017 VSB Poetry Prize. Van Binsbergen, who studied philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, investigates in her book how one can lead a meaningful life in a world dominated by market forces and strife. The dream of progress stands in sharp contrast to the individual who does not feel at home in a world he cannot grasp. She writes about the exhaustion of the earth, about unaffordable medicines. Despite her sad view of humanity, there is hope - the hope carried in words which, she believes, can make the difference. Words of poets who engage and participate fully in society.
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Obe Alkema

(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.
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Dominique De Groen

(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.
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Ton van 't Hof

published ten poetry collections, among which Aan een ster / she argued (To a star, / she argued, 2009), Een lijn is een vore (A line is a furrow, 2011) en Dingen sluiten nooit helemaal goed aan (Things never exactly fit together, 2015). He translated works by John Ashbery, Sophia Le Fraga and Charles Bernstein. He co-founded weblog De Contrabas, edited the collection Flarf (2011) and currently is also publisher at Stanza.
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Celal Altuntas

(Diyarbakir, 1972) came to the Netherlands from Turkish Kurdistan as a refugee at age 20. He described his youth in a tiny Kurdish village in his 2007 debut novel, Het dorp van de zeven broers (The Village of the Seven Brothers). At first he was happy there, until he started resisting the systematic discrimination of Kurds and joined the PKK. In 2016's Regen zonder modder (Rain Without Mud), he relates how he transformed into a social worker and writer in the Netherlands. He sketches a confronting picture of refugee life and the struggle to attain a place in our country. In 2015, Het is je zusje! (It's Your Sister!) appeared, eighteen true stories about honour and blood revenge, in which he takes the point of view of both victims and perpetrators. Besides being a writer, Altuntas is a social worker specializing in honour and blood revenge. As well, he is close to being an expert by experience. As a child he was obliged to revenge the murder of two uncles, but thanks to his peace-loving father was able to avoid it.
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Peter Abspoel

(Haarlem, NL, 1962) is an anthropologist and philosopher. His book Zingeving in het Westen: Traditie, strijdersethos en christendom (Finding Meaning in the West: Tradition, Warrior Ethos and Christianity) was published in 2016, his reworked thesis from the previous year. In it, as a practicing Catholic, he stands up for traditions because he believes them to be a significant aspect of our humanity. Thirty years ago, while Abspoel was researching the music of the Dogon in Mali, he wondered where the gulf between traditional society and our Western attitudes came from. A large portion of his book is dedicated to the history of Western mistrust towards tradition that, he says, can be traced back to the Germanic warriors who lived only to fight. Even now, that warrior ethos is dominant. Christianity, which preached humility, fit perfectly into the agenda of the warriors, and a combination of the two was beneficial for colonialism and other Western displays of power.
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Dieter van der Westen

is an Amsterdam based singer songwriter, composer and music producer from The Netherlands active in the field of World and Americana. His second solo album titled Old oak tree was released in the spring of 2016 and includes ten brand new tracks. Inspired by World and Americana musicians and artists, he started ten years ago to write and record his own songs. His first album Save my memories was released in 2008. Dieter uses preferably acoustic instruments in his music. Dieter is also one of the driving forces behind the North African musicgroup KASBA with which he is internationally active in Europe, Africa and South America and with which he had two nr 1 hitsingles in the North African music charts. In the Netherlands Dieter worked with local known artists like Thé Lau, Blof, Paul de Leeuw, Frank Boeijen, Ali B, Eric Vloeimans, Gerard van Maasakkers, Eric Vloeimans, Astrid Nijgh and the Grammy award winning Metropole Orchestra.
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DJ Socrates

(UK, 1980), like the philosopher, remains curious about new things. Always pushing boundaries and incorporating fresh music. He approaches each set as a unique road trip with a wide range of styles and countries passing by. His kaleidoscopic sound includes global reggae, trippy cumbia, UK bass, slow rave & African acid. With 20 years of experience under his belt, Socrates has matured like a good wine to celebrate life with. During Writers Unlimited Festival, he will provide a swinging Silent Disco in the foyer of Theater aan het Spui during Friday and Saturday Night Unlimited from 23:15 hours onwards.
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Anass Habib

(Morocco, 1980) is a singer and musician who plays the def, a Persian drum often used in popular as well as classical music. In Syria he studied early and pre-medieval Middle Eastern music in Aleppo and Damascus. Habib has performed in countries such as Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, France, the Netherlands, Poland, South Africa and Tunisia. He sings in many Arabic dialects, in Syriac (Aramese), in ancient Greek, and in French, Hebrew, Spanish and English.
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Arjan Peters

(Amsterdam, NL, 1963) studied Dutch language and literature in Amsterdam. He writes reviews, interviews, columns and obituaries, and heads the books section of De Volkskrant newspaper. In 2011 he published Eindelijk Sneeuw (Snow at Last: twelve wintry stories about artists, writers, and books, from Willem Witsen's cityscapes to the tears of Mrs. Dickens). Exerpts from his reviews and interviews were published in the books Langzaam lopen is al verdacht (Walking Slowly is Suspicious, 1999), De ongeneeslijke lezer – een werkboek (The Incurable Reader: a workbook, 2002), Het woord is aan de schrijver (The Writer Has the Floor, 2005), and De Broodschrijver (The Hack, 2006), about Bart Chabot's biography of Herman Brood. In 2012 he published Kreten uit een urn (Cries from an Urn), a lecture on the role of the critic in our time. His text "Naar boven mit Brakman" ("Up With Brakman") accompanied the 2015 unveiling of the Brakman monument in Enschede.
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Jos Palm

(Zeddam, NL, 1956) is a Dutch journalist, historian and radio presenter. He was founder and editor-in-chief of the Historical Newsletter and he worked for the University of Leiden newspaper Mare. Palm also writes for Trouw newspaper and the Groene Amsterdammer magazine. He has written books such as De vergeten geschiedenis van Nederland (The Forgotten History of The Netherlands); Oerend hard (Super Fast), about the musician Ben Jolink; and Moederkerk, de ondergang van rooms Nederland (Mother Church: The Decline of the Roman-Catholic Netherlands). After a Catholic upbringing he turned away from the religion. He was very active for years with the then-revolutionary SP socialist party. Among other things, he works for OVT, the history program of the VPRO public radio station.
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Kamal Hors

is a singer, composer, oud-player (Arabic lute) and co-founder of the musical ensemble Weshm, which has toured Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Morocco. Through the years he composed music for theatre and dance performances, produced CDs, and organized workshops and lectures about Moroccan and Arabic music. He also composed  musical scores.  Currently, Hors is working on the project Flamenco & Tamazight and Safar Andalous with the Nafas Quartet in Switzerland.
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Eric Vloeimans

is a trumpet player who has been active in a wide variety of ensembles. He toured the US twice with his acoustic ‘chamber/jazz’ 'Fugimundi' trio. His other band is Eric Vloeimans' Gatecrash. Vloeimans expands his trumpet mastery with electronics special effects. Gatecrash has earned a reputation as one of Europe's top cross-over bands between jazz and pop. Vloeimans' performances and recordings with a multitude of other formations has shown his versatility. He played with national and international artists such as Mercer Ellington, John Taylor, Peter Erskine, soundartist Michel Banabila, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and many, many others. Eric has also ventured into film music, writing (with Fons Merkies) and performing the music for the feature film Majesteit (2010), as well as for the animation film Audition (with Martin Fondse). He has been honored because of his many works covering genres ranging from classical to pop, film music, world and jazz. In between playing all over the world, he shares his talent with the students of the Codarts College for the Arts in Rotterdam, and the Royal Conservatory in the Hague.
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Jan Baeke

(Roosendaal, 1956) is a poet and translator. Baeke’s collection Groter dan de feiten (Bigger than the Facts), was reviewed positively and nominated for the VSB Poetry Prize. In this book he takes the reader via often ambiguous cinematic poems on a journey to a sunbaked but oppressive mediterranean provincial town where nostalgia, uneasiness and love lie in wait. Baeke made his debut in 1997 with the poetry book Nooit zonder paarden (Never without Horses). Baeke' s work is influenced by filmmakers like Luis Buñuel and Andrej Tarkovksy and poets such as Ingeborg Bachmann and Jaap Kaplinski. His work has been translated into English and French. Since 2009 Baeke works for Poetry International in Rotterdam.
Jan Baeke receives the Jan Campert Prize 2016 for his collection Seizoensroddel (Seasonal gossip). The jury states: "As obvious as the poems of Jan Baeke sound, as little flexible is the world he describes in his masterful collection. These uncomfortable poems offer little protection but do console with the awareness that we have all lost our way."
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Kees 't Hart

(The Netherlands, 1944) is a writer and poet. His novel De Keizer en de astroloog (The Emperor and the Astrologer, 2008) sees apprentice psychiatrist Simon employed as an astrologer at the court of Emperor William II in Doorn, ending up in absurd situations. In 2000 he wins the Multatuli Prize for his novel The Revue (1999). In Teatro Olimpico (2014) Dutch theatre professionals try to stage their show in Italy. Wederzijds (Mutual, 2017) is a satire about neighbourhood help and in the historical and humorous De ziekte van Weimar (The Disease of Weimar, 2019), a man from Franeker travels to Weimar to meet Goethe. VICTORIEN, ik hou van je (2021) is a collection of 'stories and outpourings'; 2023 will see the publication of his third collection of poems, Vogelkerkhof.
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Anton Valens

(Paterswolde, 1964) got critical acclaim and various literary awards for his debut Meester in de Hygiëne (Master in Hygiene, 2004). In this strongly autobiographical collection of short stories Valens writes about his experiences in home care. Just like Valens, the main character Bonne is a visual artist with ties with Groningen. His second book Dweiloorlog (Mop War, 2008) is a sequel to his debut, with more stories about Bonne's experiences. In 2009 he published the novella Vis (Fish). Again the main character is a visual artist who this time sails on a fishing boat, and so gets to know the rough life of a fisherman. In between he wrote a travelogue on China, Ik wilde naar de rand van Beijing (Journey to the Outskirts of Beijing, 2008). In 2012 he published Het boek Ont (The book Ont) and in 2016 Het compostcirculatieplan (The compost circulation plan), the novel for which he has been awarded with the F. Bordewijk Prize. The jury states: "Gardening is garden warfare in this wonderful novel about friendship and mourning. In superb style Valens shows the effort with which we, season after season, try to get to grips with life - with our feet in the mud, in which we finally all will have to disappear."
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Paul van der Gaag

(Netherlands, 1958) has produced and presented the VPRO radio programme OVT since 2002, a two-hour show about the historical roots of current events as well as newly released historical books, films, commemorations, and anything else related to history. The show features live interviews, reportage, columns and a weekly documentary during the last half hour. He was already linked to OVT since 1992 as a programmer and previously freelanced for other national Dutch broadcasters such as VARA and IKON.
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Judith Uijterlinde

(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.
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Simon(e) van Saarloos

is a writer, artistic collaborator 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). . Van Saarloos works as an independent curator of public programming and artistic collaborations. A current PhD candidate in Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, they are interested in Black feminist engagements with quantum physics and focused on the rhetorical (im)possibility of existence without defense. Van Saarloos is currently writing a new book for AK Press, titled Trans Despair: Staying Unrelated and Insecure.

Go the website of Simon(e) van Saarloos
Instagram: @svansaarloos
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Damiaan Denys

(1965) is a prominent psychiatrist, neuroscientist, writer and theatre actor. Born in Flanders, he works and lives in The Netherlands. He studied philosophy and medicine in Belgium, graduated in psychiatry from Utrecht University, and worked as head of anxiety disorders of UMC Utrecht. He is a professor at the University of Amsterdam and department head of psychiatry at AMC Amsterdam. Denys developed Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), a method to master compulsive thoughts. In his book Angstparadox (Anxiety Paradox, 2016) he states: "If there is a single word that holds the essence of the world in which we live now, of what guides us and of what holds us back, it is anxiety." Denys writes and acts in theatre monologues, among them Van angst naar vrijheid (From Anxiety to Freedom, 2016), which is "about the sense and nonsense of our contemporary culture of anxiety".
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Michalis Cholevas

is a Greek multi-instrumentalist playing Ney, Saz, Yayli Tanbur and its descendant, the Tarhu. His path starts in Athens, Greece where he studied Byzantine, Jazz and Eastern Mediterranean music traditions. At the age of 30 he moved to the Netherlands to follow a Master’s program in Turkish Music at Rotterdam World Music Academy (Codarts, University for the Arts) where he now works as the Head of Studies. Michalis studied with Ömer Erdoğdular, Kudsi Ergüner and Erdal Erzincan. He has collaborated with several artists including the ensemble of Kudsi Ergüner, the composer Angelo Badalamenti, Apollo Musagette Quartet, Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra, the George Kontrafouris Jazz trio and Louisiana Red. He teaches at Codarts, University for the arts, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
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Benno Tempel

(Harderwijk, 1972) is an art historian and director of the Municipal Museum in The Hague. He started his career as guest curator at the Dordrecht Museum, worked as assistant curator at the Van Gogh Museum from 1997 to 2000, as curator at the Mesdag Museum and as a member of the scientific staff at the Rijksmuseum. He was curator of exhibitions at Kunsthal Rotterdam from 2000 to 2006. He briefly returned to the Van Gogh Museum in 2009 before taking on his current position in The Hague. He was a jury member for the TV programme The New Rembrandt, searching for new artistic talent. Tempel has written a number of books on art, including Escher Meets Islamic Art (2014), which investigates how the patterns of Moorish art from southern Spain influenced his work. In Discover the Modern (2012), he shows how political and social events have influenced the development of art.
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Alfred Marseille

Is a designer and media artist with a background in philosophy and electronic music working in video, sound, photography and installation art. Marseille collaborates with poet Jan Baeke as Public Thought since 2006. Jan Baeke and Alfred Marseille create cinépoèmes, data poems, moving shorts and practice the art of speculative analysis. Their work counts among the most prolific digital poetry in the Netherlands. He is active in artist collective De Tropisten that has taken part in major exhibitions and performances in Fabriek, Eindhoven, Zeebelt theatre, The Hague, Time Based Arts, Amsterdam, Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, Plasy monastery, Czech republic, Interazoni Festival, Cagliari, and since 2012: Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, Amsterdam Light Festival, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Since 1995, Marseille designs interactive media; he founded design studio Zeezeilen in 2000.
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Jennifer Clement

(USA, 1960) is President of PEN International. She has authored five novels, including Prayers for the Stolen. It was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and appeared internationally on many book-of-the-year lists. In 2018, Gun Love was published, a topical novel about homelessness, the America love for weapons and the despair of people living on the edge of society. She has published various volumes of poetry, including The Next Stranger. Clement also wrote cult classic Widow Basquiat about painter and street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and life in New York City in the early '80s. She is a member of the prestigious Mexican 'Sistema Nacional de Creadores' and received an NEA Fellowship, an award of the American National Endowment for the Arts.
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Abdelkader Benali

(Morocco, 1975) is an award-winning writer, poet, playwright and curator. His 1996 debut, Bruiloft aan zee (Wedding By the Sea), was an immediate success. His second novel, De langverwachte (The Long-awaited) won him the prestigious 2003 Libris Literature Award. Benali's subjects vary, but sports and the migrant who never really feels at home are recurring themes. He has written novels about his great passion of running, about his travels, and about migrants' cultural identity (Bad Boy). His work has been published internationally. Recent books include the novel Paradijsvogel boven Hoge Woerd (Bird of Paradise over Hoge Woerd, 2022) and Het andere verhaal (The Other Story, 2022), an essay about his research into 75 years of modern Moroccan art.
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Katinka Polderman

('s-Heer Abtskerke, 1981) studied at the Cabaret Academy in Rotterdam and the Koningstheaterakademie in Den Bosch. February 2005 she won both the Jury and the Audience Prizes of the prestigious Leiden Caberet Festival. Since then she tours the Dutch and Flemish theatre circuit ('Dullard Polderman is one of the best kept secrects of theatres in The Netherlands and Belgium. Yet she made already four stage productions loaded with happy cynicism, subtle clumsiness, engagement, striking observations and well-build songs', she writes about herself). Polderman made television programmes for Dutch regional broadcaster Omroep Zeeland. She published columns in, among others, daily newspapers Spits and Trouw and currently in theater magazine Scenes. She write songs for Radio 5 cabaret programme Andermans Veren and for NTR's 'Snapjes', short educational songs awarded with the Cinekid Gouden Kinderkast Prize. During the theatre season 2016-2017, Polderman plays her production Polderman Tiert Welig (Flourish with exuberance) throughout The Netherlands and Belgium, while writing for and performing in a play with composer Jorrit Tamminga and video artist Menno de Nooijer.
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Charlotte Van den Broeck

(1991) is a Flemish poet from Turnhout. After finishing her Language and Literature Studies at the University of Ghent, she explored word art at the Antwerp Conservatory. In the Poëziebordeel van Vonk en Zonen, Ondernemers in de letteren she performs as Lulu Wedekind. She toured with Saint Amour 2015. The same year, she was the closing act of the 33rd Night of the Poetry in Utrecht; in 2016, therefore, she opened the 34th Night of the Poetry. January 2015, her debut Kameleon was published by De Arbeiderspers. October 2016, she opened the Frankfurter Buchmesse together with Arnon Grunberg, as the youngest guest-country speaker ever. Her second poetry collection Nachtroer (2017) is nominated for the VSB Poëzieprijs (VSE Poetry Award) 2018.
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Vonne van der Meer

(Eindhoven, 1952) attended a theatre director in Amsterdam and after that worked ten years for various theatre companies as a director. During that decade she wrote her first short stories. In 1985 she made her debut with the collection of stories Het limonadegevoel en andere verhalen (The lemonade feeling and other stories). She was awarded the Geertjan Lubberhuizen prize for this. Van der Meer became well known through her novel-in-stories Eilandgasten (Island guests). Her books have been translated in, among others, French, German and Spanish. Next to writing, she teaches at the Ritcs (film and television academy) in Brussels, Belgium. Since her writers' debut she is a PEN Nederland member and is a board member since 2016. She recently succeeded Manon Uphoff as PEN Nederland President.
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Maarten Ornstein

(Amstelveen, 1967) is a saxophonist, composer and musical jack-of-all-trades who is involved in a great number of projects. In 2004 he founded the group DASH! to combine all the projects he was working on, from theatre productions and concerts with classical musicians to performances with work of his own. In 1989 Ornstein won the soloists' prize at the North Sea Jazz festival. Some years later he was involved in the foundation of the big band New Cool Collective, as a composer and an arranger. Also, Ornstein composed for, among others, the Metropole Orchestra, Ties Mellema, Calefax Rietkwintet, Koor Nieuwe Muziek en North Sea Jazz Festival.
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Stevo Akkerman

(1963) is a journalist and columnist at Trouw daily newspaper. He wrote the novels Vals weerzien and De inboorling and the autobiographical Donderdagmiddagdochter. For this novel he received the CLO Literaire Jury prize and the Flemish prize for the Best Spiritual Book.
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Max Pam

(1946) is writer and a journalist who publishes columns, essays and other articles in national Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant, in Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool, weekly magazine Binnenlands Bestuur and literary magazine Hollands Maandblad. Additionally he was columnist in the Sunday morning national TV news magazine Buitenhof and literary critic of opinion weekly HP/De Tijd. In 1994 he was awarded with the Audax Columnisten Prize. In Het Parool he writes a weekly article about chess - he thinks Gary Kasparov is a greater chess player as Bobby Fischer.
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John Jansen van Galen

(Velp) studied political and social science. From 1968 to 1990 he worked for the Haagse Post, the last five years as editor in chief. Nowadays Jansen van Galen until 2015 was one of the regular presenters of a NOS current affairs radio programme. In 1970 he came to Surinam for the first time to work as a radio journalist and he soon became acknowledged as the Netherlands' expert on Surinam. In 2000 his book Hetenachtsdroom (Hotnight's dream) was published. This is about the influence of Surinam's nationalism. In 2004 his book De toekomst van het koninkrijk (The future of the Kingdom) appeared, about the decolonisation of the Dutch Antilles and Aruba. Jansen van Galen also writes books about hiking. In 2016 his book De gouden jaren van het linkse levensgevoel: Het verhaal van Vrij Nederland, a history of the left wing weekly Vrij Nederland.
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Bart Funnekotter

author of De hel van 1812 (The Hell of 1812) is historian and journalist for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. He reviews books on history for the VPRO radio programme O.V.T.
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Nelleke Noordervliet

(Netherlands, 1945) writes novels, stories, essays, lectures and columns with a strong historical bent. She debuted with 1987's Tine of de dalen waar het leven woont (Tine, or the Valleys Where Life Lives), a fictitious biography of 19th-century Dutch writer Multatuli's first wife. Her book De naam van de vader (The Name of the Father) won the 1994 Multatuli Prize. In 2002 she wrote Pelican Bay, about slavery in the Caribbean and the Netherlands. Her essay collection Schatplicht (Tribute) appeared in 2013, and her 2016 novel Aan het eind van de dag (At the End of the Day) is simultaneously a portrait of a career woman and a snapshot of the second half of the 20th century. De val van Thomas G. (The fall of Thomas G.) tells about the publisher of a controversial book. Noordervliet's body of work was awarded the 2018 Constantijn Huygens Prize.
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Ruth Lasters

(1979) was born in Antwerp, studied Roman philology in Brussels. Her literary debut, the novel Poolijs (Polar Ice), was awarded with the Flemish Debut Prize in 2007. She published her second novel Feestelijk zweet (Festive sweat) in 2010 followed by her third novel Vlaggenbrief (Flag Letter) in 2014. Her poetry debut Vouwplannen (Folding Plans) was awarded with the Debut Prize Het Liegend Konijn (The Lying Rabbit, 2009). In 2015, she published her second poetry collection Lichtmeters (Light Meters) for which she received the Herman De Coninck Prize and a nomination for the VSB Poetry Award. Next to writing prose and poetry, she likes writing columns and, now and then, an opinion piece for Belgian newspaper De Standaard. She also works as equal opportunities coordinator and teacher at a secondary school in Borgerhout.
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Ece Temelkuran

(Turkey, 1973) is an award-winning Turkish writer, political thinker, and speaker. After leaving her home country in 2016, she wrote How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Fascism. In 2021, she published Together: A Manifesto Against the Heartless World, now translated into Dutch for the first time, and in 2025 Nation of Strangers was published, with the Dutch translation appearing in 2026. Her work is translated and published worldwide. She currently lives in Berlin and serves on the advisory boards of Progressive International and DemocracyNext.
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Babah Tarawally

(Sierra Leone, 1972) is a writer and journalist. In his essayistic book Gevangen in zwartwit-denken. En hoe we kunnen ontsnappen (Trapped in black-and-white thinking. And how we can escape, 2018) he describes how this mechanism determined his thinking for a long time, until he let it go. He pleads for a Civil Rights Movement, inspired by Ubuntu, the African philosophy that revolves around giving and taking, and sharing in groups to strengthen the 'us'. In 1995 he fled Sierra Leone. In 2010 his novel De god met de blauwe ogen (The god with blue eyes) appeared. He was programme coordinator of the Winternachten Festival 2012 and wrote columns in One World; he is also project leader at De ToekomstAcademie (The Future Academy) that is part of New Dutch Connections, an organisation that motivates and inspires (former) refugees. In 2016 he published his second book, De verloren hand (The Lost Hand), a novel about the experiences of asylum seekers and their struggle to overcome traumas.
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Winternachten lecture: Fiction in Fake Times

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 20:00 tot 21:10 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1
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What is real, what is fake? And yet it's the fabrications that can provide insight into the world in which we live. The Anglo-Dutch Michel Faber, who kicks off the evening with the Winternachten Lecture about reality and fantasy, creates a future world in his novels, just like Dutch writer Hanna Bervoets. Czech economist Tomáš Sedláček sees parallels between economics and old myths, and Mircea Cărtărescu, also a translator of Bob Dylan lyrics, filled his trilogy about Communist Romania with mythical escapes from reality. Moderator: Lex Bohlmeijer. Meer details bekijken

The Dutch on the Couch: Stine Jensen

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 20:00 tot 20:40 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2
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A country sees the doctor — the Netherlands is suffering from burnout. Young and old are working themselves to pieces: placement tests of elementary schoolchildren can make or break their futures; graduates can't find work without four Masters and dozens of side activities; the retirement age keeps getting raised. We live in a continual rat race, and what at first seemed an advantage — endless possibilities compared with the past — is slowly  becoming a hindrance. It's the stress of so many choices, and the idea that, since one can in theory lead a perfect life, one ought to. With Professor of psychiatry Damiaan Denys and, as patient The Netherlands, filosopher Stine Jensen. In Dutch.

Stine Jensen has taken the place of Joke Hermsen, who had to cancel because of a flue. Damiaan Denys replaces Gündüz Vassaf, who was announced in the brochure. Meer details bekijken

Might is Always Right - Lessons from House of Cards

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 20:00 tot 20:50 uur
Location Filmhuis - zaal 1
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While the United States welcome their new president, the festival is investigating another one: Frank Underwood, star of House of Cards. Philosopher Tom Dommisse wrote an article that is the basis for a discussion between The Hague Filmhuis programmer Gerlinda Heywegen and Felix Rottenberg, touching on fragments from the series. How are politics presented in the Netflix hit series and what image of themselves do real-life Underwoods create? And what is the imact of all this on how we think about politics?
Felix Rottenberg is a director, moderator, chair of the academic bureau of the PvdA labour party, and writer of a weekly column in Het Parool newspaper. Meer details bekijken

Friday Night Wintercafé: Spot on Young Poets

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 20:10 tot 21:00 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - foyer
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Francis Broekhuijsen presents students of Hague high schools reading their own poetry, the result of workshops led by members of the Hague Poets' Guild. Young poet and 2016 C. Buddingh Prize winner Marieke Rijneveld and British poet and performer Salena Godden keep them company. During each Spot on Young Poets event (Friday and Saturday), one finalist for the Young Campert Prize will be chosen. Both finalists will read their poems during Sunday's Writers' Festival event, ahead of the award ceremony of the Jan Campert Foundation prizes. The public will choose one of them as the winner of this new prize for best Hague student poet. Come down and witness the literary future! Meer details bekijken

The Book of My Life: Bas Heijne

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 20:20 tot 20:40 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
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Bas Heijne talks about his favourite book - the book that inspires or moves him; the book that formed his moral or intellectual compass; the book that he would recommend to anyone. Interviewer: Hassnae Bouazza. In Dutch Meer details bekijken

The Book of My Life: Rodrigo Hasbún

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 20:40 tot 21:00 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
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Rodrigo Hasbún talks about his favourite book - the book that inspires or moves him; the book that formed his moral or intellectual compass; the book that he would recommend to anyone. Interviewer: Hassnae Bouazza. In English. Meer details bekijken

The Secret Space - Poetry

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 20:45 tot 21:55 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2
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Within De verborgen ruimte (The Secret Space), the map is newly read and drawn by nine poets. Which sounds and tones belong in it, what has not yet been said, and what is continually misunderstood? Who is on the sidelines or smack in the centre? The Secret Space could be in suburbia, in a body, in a factory farm, or in an addictions clinic. This has consequences - whoever peeks into the secret space loses a number of his or her certainties. When the map is redrawn, no one finds their way home.

The "VSB Poetry Prize on Tour" forms part of The Secret Space - among the performing poets are the authors of three volumes nominated for the VSB Poetry Prize: Kwaadgesternte (Born Under a Bad Sign) by Hannah van Binsbergen, Lichtmeters by Ruth Lasters and Koelkastlicht (Refrigerator Light) by Rodaan Al Galidi. In addition, Marieke Rijneveld, Dominique de Groen, Mira Feticu, Obe Alkema, Simone Atangana Bekono and Ton van ’t Hof will read from their work. The Secret Space is organized and presented by the poet Maarten van der Graaff, winner of the C.Buddingh' Award 2014 for his debut collection Vluchtautogedichten (Getaway Car Poems). Programme in Dutch Meer details bekijken

Film: Fleeing is No Longer Allowed

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 20:55 tot 22:00 uur
Location Filmhuis - zaal 1
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Gerlinda Haywegen, a curator with the festival and programmer for The Hague's Filmhuis, presents and introduces a series of short films, video clips and animated shorts. The linking factor: fleeing and refugees. The video clip to PJ Harvey's song "The Wheel" shows possible motives for fleeing; a virtuostically shot documentary on Lampedusa is fictional in form and factual in content; and the illegally shot video clip of Afghani rapper Sonita went globally viral due to her plea for equal rights for girls and women. Also, animation can be a way to show "reality" better than a man with a camera ever could. Fleeing today is no longer allowed but happens ever more often. This is real life.
Meer details bekijken

Friday Night Wintercafé

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 21:00 tot 23:45 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - foyer
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The foyer of the Theater aan het Spui is the beating heart of the festival. At the Friday Night Wintercafé, writers encounter the public and vice versa. Host and festival guide Francis Broekhuijsen guides your way through the program. Together with his guests he creates an inviting, homey atmosphere.

Listen to up-and-coming local poetic talent at the Wintercafé during the Spot on Young Poets program from the Hague Poets' Guild. The young poets are accompanied by Marieke Rijneveld, poet and winner of the 2016 C. Buddingh Prize, and British poet and performer Salena Godden. The winner of the Young Campert Prize will also be chosen.

Of course you can just relax and chat in the Wintercafé over a drink and a bite. Music is provided by singer-songwriter Dieter van der Westen and DJ Socrates. You can meet the writers during their signing sessions at the Van Stockum Bookshop. The Cultural Press Centre reports on the proceedings -- stop by and share your impressions of the festival!

Booksigning sessions at Van Stockum Bookshop:
20.45-21.15: Ian Buruma
21.15–21.45: Mircea Cărtărescu, Tomas Sedlacek and Michel Faber
22.15–22.45: Michaïl Sjisjkin and Hassan Blasim

The Poetry Machine by Hague graphic designer Roos Laan can transform your thoughts into a made-to-measure poem. Imagine yourself a true poet via this meeting of man and computer.

The Friday Night Wintercafé is the place to plan out your evening, either with Francis Broekhuijsen as your guide or all by yourself.

At the end of the evening, DJ Socrates lowers your thoughts to the level of your dancing shoes as he kicks off the night in true festival tradition and gets you ready for another festival day. Meer details bekijken

The Book of My Life: Ece Temelkuran

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 21:10 tot 21:30 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
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The Turkish writer/journalist talks about her favourite book - the book that inspires or moves her; the book that formed her moral or intellectual compass; the book that she would recommend to anyone. Interviewer: Hassnae Bouazza. In English. Meer details bekijken

In the Mirror of Refugees

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 21:15 tot 22:10 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1
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The image that refugees have of Europe does not match the reality they experience upon arrival. Europe is a fiction. German-Azerbaijani writer Olga Grjasnowa wrote about the displaced in a globalized world; the Russian Michaïl Sjisjkin translated for asylumseekers in Vienna for years, which led to his novel Venus Hair; and novelist and filmmaker Hassan Blasim fled Irak and ended up turning his experiences into a book in Finland. Dutchman Tommy Wieringa delved into the motives of refugees for Dit zijn de namen (These Are the Names). What do they find in Europe? Moderator: Jeroen van Kan. Meer details bekijken

The Book of My Life: Piotr Ibrahim Kalwas

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 21:40 tot 22:00 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
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The Polish author talks about his favourite book - the book that inspires or moves him; the book that formed his moral or intellectual compass; the book that he would recommend to anyone. Interviewer: Hassnae Bouazza. In English. Meer details bekijken

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 22:00 tot 22:55 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2
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"The world is a story we tell ourselves about the world," according to Indian writer Vikram Chandra. Hanna Bervoets used the quote as a motto for her novel Efter, in which she investigates the fairy tales we tell ourselves and others to come to grips with our surroundings. Because we do tell one another fairy tales: about how the world appears, but also about how we ourselves appear. On Facebook, Instagram and vlogs we show our best side: photos are Photoshopped or simply "not allowed on timeline." Thus the world is not only a story we tell ourselves about the world, but also a story we tell the world about ourselves. With Hanna Bervoets, Salena Godden and others. Meer details bekijken

In Search of the Real (Love) - Dorit Rabinyan about her novel Border Life and the film Anomalisa

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 22:05 tot 22:55 uur
Location Filmhuis - zaal 1
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Israeli writer Dorit Rabinyan wrote a contemporary Romeo and Julia: her novel Border Life tells about the impossible love between a Palestine man and an Israeli woman. Love, consciousness and identity are rarely depicted as keenly on screen as in the animation film Anomalisa. Danish-Dutch philosopher Stine Jensen will discuss Rabinyan's novel and the film with her and the audience. A screening of Anomalisa follows. Please note that the discussion and the screening can also be attended independently. In English Meer details bekijken

This Is Not America (part 1)

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 22:15 tot 22:55 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1
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A late-night show about the United States of America that touches on many issues, from the shrinking middle class to the differences between whites and blacks, from hopeful new immigrants to the embittered white underclass. The America of the supporters of Donald Trump. A discussion between bestselling US author Colson Whitehead, Bolivian author Rodrigo Hasbún, Dutch writer Christine Otten and Anglo-Dutch writer Ian Buruma about America in the era of president Trump. Stephan Sanders moderates the conversation and Spoken Beat Night adds a jazzy musical interpretation of the American story. Meer details bekijken

The Book of my Life: Baban Kirkuki

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 22:20 tot 22:40 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
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The Iraqi/Dutch poet talks about his favourite book - the book that inspires or moves him; the book that formed his moral or intellectual compass; the book that he would recommend to anyone. Interviewer: Hassnae Bouazza. In Dutch. Meer details bekijken

The Book of My Life: Olga Grjasnowa

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 22:40 tot 23:00 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
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The Azerbaijani-German writer talks about her favourite book - the book that inspires or moves her; the book that formed her moral or intellectual compass; the book that she would recommend to anyone. Interviewer: Hassnae Bouazza. In English. Meer details bekijken

This Is Not America (Part 2)

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 23:00 tot 23:45 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1
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The unexpected election of businessman Donald Trump as president of the United States will be signed and sealed in Washington this Friday, 20 January. The choice of Trump is seen primarily as a protest by citizens against the established political elite, and a sign of broad discontent among the American public. Is the USA our role model - will voters stand up against the political establishment here as well? In Europe in 2017, significant elections will take place in the Netherlands, France and Germany; the Dutch will be first to go to the ballot box on 15 March to elect their members of parliament. Should we expect a surprise?
In This is Not America, writers and journalists will compare the USA and the Netherlands under the knowledgeable direction of Stephan Sanders. Margriet Oostveen wrote a column for NRC Handelsblad from the US about daily life there; currently she does the same for the Volkskrant about the Dutch from the Netherlands. Bas Heijne offers a broader cultural context for the general discontent; Ian Buruma, a citizen of and expert on both countries, makes comparisons; and Arnon Grunberg reflects on what he hears and sees in the streets of New York and The Hague. Jeanine Valeriano and her Spoken Beat Night finish up the evening with a sparkling performance. Meer details bekijken

Film: Anomalisa

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 23:00 tot 00:30 uur
Location Filmhuis - zaal 1
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Michael Stone, a married father and respected author, finds himself completely numbed by the daily grind. On a business trip to Cincinnati, where he's slated to give a speech at a congress of customer-service personnel, he takes a room at the Fregoli Hotel. There, to his big surprise, he discovers a possible escape from despair when he meets the inconspicuous Lisa, a sales rep of baking products from Akron. Maybe she's the love of his live, maybe she isn't. Anomalisa is a stop-motion animation from 2016, the most recent film by Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synecdoche, New York) and Duke Johnson, known for the episode "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" from the series Community.

Directors: Duke Johnson, Charlie Kaufman
USA, 2016
90'
In English with Dutch subtitles
Voicework by David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tom Noonan Meer details bekijken

The Book of My Life: Mircea Cărtărescu

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 23:15 tot 23:35 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
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The Romanian writer talks about his favourite book - the book that inspires or moves him; the book that formed his moral or intellectual compass; the book that he would recommend to anyone. Interviewer: Hassnae Bouazza. Meer details bekijken

Dancing into the Friday Night

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Date and time Friday 20 January 2017 23:45 tot 01:00 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - foyer
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Moving between the popular and the adventurous, DJ Socrates finds links between the music of different countries, giving top priority to roots and inspiration. Energizing Afro beat and tropical funk, reggae, sultry cumbia grooves and a dash of electro-swing make sure that we can dance through the night after an evening of words. Meer details bekijken

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