Friday Night Unlimited

Get inspired by interviews about books, discussions on the festival theme A Free Mind, readings of newly written essays or poetry, film screenings and music! During Friday Night Unlimited you can choose from 24 events on six stages at Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag. Each event lasts between 30 and 60 minutes and is in English or Dutch. You can  download the schedule of events here. This shows you which programmes are in English, Dutch, or 'language no problem'. You can also pick up a printed schedule at the door upon arrival.

Tickets for Friday Night Unlimited
A Friday Night Unlimited ticket gives you access on Friday evening, 17 January, to all Writers Unlimited festival programming in Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag.

Separate tickets for Winternachten festival films and film programs
Through Filmhuis Den Haag's website and box office, tickets are available for the Winternachten festival film programs in Zaal 1 and Zaal 2 of the Filmhuis. Please note: these film tickets are not available through the website of Het Nationale Theater or at the Theater aan het Spui box office, and do not allow access to the Friday Night Unlimited program in Theater aan het Spui.

Information

Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 from 20:00 to 01:00 hrs
Location Theater aan het Spui & Filmhuis Den Haag

Tijdschema 17 January

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Time Location
20:00 - 20:35 Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2 Dreaming Pays Off: the poetry of Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer
20:00 - 21:05 Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1 Fifty Ways to Free Your Language
20:00 - 21:00 Filmhuis - zaal 1 Film: Colony of Images
20:05 - 20:01 Filmhuis - Studio A Book of My Life: Mylo Freeman
20:10 - 21:05 Theater aan het Spui - foyer Spot on Young Poets
20:30 - 20:50 Filmhuis - Studio A Book of My Life: Asmaa Azaizeh
20:40 - 21:01 Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2 The Best Books You've Never Heard of
20:55 - 21:15 Filmhuis - Studio A Book of My Life: Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer
21:00 - 22:15 Filmhuis - zaal 2 FILM: A Fool's Paradise
21:05 - 23:45 Theater aan het Spui - foyer Friday Night Wintercafé
21:10 - 22:00 Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1 Art Deco - liberating the Arts
21:20 - 22:10 Filmhuis - zaal 1 Film: Writer Vamba Sherif on Imgages of Africa
21:20 - 21:40 Filmhuis - Studio A Book of My Life: Mukoma Wa Ngugi
21:30 - 22:10 Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2 Books Unlimited: Petina Gappah & Asmaa Azaizeh
21:45 - 22:05 Filmhuis - Studio A Book of My Life: Barbaros Altug
22:05 - 22:55 Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1 Image-makers and image-breakers
22:10 - 22:30 Filmhuis - Studio A Book of My Life: Cagla Meknuze
22:15 - 22:55 Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2 Linguistic Colonization: Then and Now
22:30 - 00:10 Filmhuis - zaal 2 Film: Stones Have Laws (Dee Sitonu a Weti)
22:30 - 00:00 Filmhuis - zaal 1 Film: Heremakono
23:00 - 23:40 Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1 Free at Last: A Day of Decolonised Life
23:45 - 01:00 Theater aan het Spui - foyer Winternachten Club featuring Tabanka

Line-up

Robert van Asten

(Voorburg, 1978) is Alderman for Mobility, Culture and Strategy of the City of The Hague since June 2018. Libraries, monuments and cultural heritage are also part of his policy areas. Furthermore he is Alderman of Segbroek, one of the eight The Hague districts. Before taking office as Alderman, Van Asten was a member of The Hague's City Council for D66 since 2014. He studied tax law at Leiden University and worked for, among others, Deloitte and Vistra.
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Diann van Faassen

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

Instagram @diannvanfaassen
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Cynthia Mc Leod

(Suriname, 1936) made her writer's debut with Hoe duur was de suiker? (How Costly Was the Sugar?, 1987), the novel that made her the most famous Surinamese writer overnight and was adapted for film in 2013. She was the first to describe the history, the slaving past and the colonization of her country from a Surinamese perspective. As an expert in the field, she lectures about the history of slavery at US and Canadian universities and organizes educational field and city trips. She has written historic novels, including De Vrije Negerin Elisabeth, gevangene van kleur (The Free Negress Elizabeth, Prisoner of Colour, 1992), as well as studies, children's books and children's musicals. Her No kwik in het bos (No Mercury in the Forest, 2017) is a YA novel about a ten-year-old girl and the dangers of mercury in the gold-mining process. McLeod is a daughter of Johan Ferrier, the first president of Suriname.
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Antjie Krog

(South Africa, 1952) is a poet, writer, academic and a cherished reciter. Her book Country of My Skull (2000, adapted for film in 2004) is a personal account of the proceedings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She published her autobiographical memoirs as A Change of Tongue (2003). Krog has won many prizes, including the Hertzog prize in South Africa and the 2018 Gouden Ganzenveer in the Netherlands. An anthology of her poetry was published in Dutch in 2010, titled Hoe zeg je dat (How Do You Say That), and Begging to be Black, the sequel to Country of My Skull and A Change of Tongue.
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Wende

(UK, 1978), is a singer/songwriter, theatre professional, chansonnière, actor, performer, producer and house artist at the Royal Carré Theatre. Wende uses her position to create challenging and groundbreaking projects in which language, technology and genre play different and surprising roles. Her project MENS, for example, is a raw and controversial snapshot of an era featuring electro beats and frank, fragile songs. She has performed at festivals including Down the Rabbit Hole and Into the Great Wide Open. In 2018 she won awards including the Annie M.G. Schmidt Prize and the BUMA NL Award. She and Ramsey Nasr will play the leads in the film verson of Connie Palmen's novel I.M., which will be aired in the spring of 2020. She's currently collaborating with the London Royal Court Theatre on her new show, The Song Project (working title), premiering in 2020.
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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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Ramsey Nasr

(The Netherlands, 1974) is a poet, writer, actor and director. He made his poetry debut in 2000 with 27 gedichten & Geen lied (27 Poems & No Song). Nasr acts in films and TV series and is a member of the International Theatre Amsterdam ensemble. His stage and screen roles have been awarded multiple times. He also writes theatre pieces, columns, essays and opinon pieces. From 2009 to 2013 he was the Dutch Poet Laureate. In his essay collection De fundamenten (The Fundamentals, 2021), he assesses a corona pandemic-struck nation; Nasr compacter (2021) gathers the best of his poems from a two-decade career. In 2023 he created a series for Dutch TV about objects from his own collections, Dr Nasrs Wunderkammer (Dr. Nasr's Chamber of Wonders).
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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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Petina Gappah

(Zimbabwe, 1971) debuted in 2009 with the short-story collection An Elegy for Easterly, followed by her first novel The Book of Memory (2015) and another story collection, Rotten Row (2016). Her new book Out of Darkness, Shining Light tells the story of the perilous, months-long trek made in 1873 by 69 workers to transport the body of the explorer David Livinstone from central Africa to the Zanzibar coast, so it could eventually be buried in England. "I write the history of the black people of Zimbabwe, those about whom nobody ever speaks." Gappah studied law in Zimbabwe and Cambridge, worked as a lawyer, and lives in Berlin as artist-in-residence. She has won many international prizes for her work.
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Mukoma Wa Ngũgĩ

(USA, 1971) grew up in Kenya but returned to the US to study political science, English and creative writing. He is a writer, political analyst and columnist for BBC Focus on Africa Magazine. Wa Ngũgĩ wrote several novels, including Nairobi Heat (2009), Black Star Nairobi (2013) and Mrs. Shaw (2015), as well as two volumes of poetry: Hurling Words at Consciousness (2006) en Logotherapy a decade later. He also wrote non-fiction titles, including Conversing with Africa: Politics of Change (2003) and The Rise of the African Novel: Politics of Language, Identity and Ownership (2018). He has written many political essays and columns for publications like the LA Times and World LIterature Today. Wa Ngũgĩ is a professor of English at Cornell University in New York and the son of the Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.
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Toef Jaeger

(Bloemendaal, NL, 1971) is an editor with the daily NRC Handelsblad newspaper. Her book Koning eenoog, en migrantenverhaal (King One-Eye: An immigrant story) about Henk van Woerden was presented during the 2015 festival; the story of ever-seeking immigrant Van Woerden (1947-2005), who was a writer as well as a visal artist. He wrote a trilogy abut South Africa that received national and international attention, and which, in its rootlessness, forever changed Dutch literature about South Africa. In 2014 Het Boekenparadijs. De opkomst en ondergang van de grootste boekhandelsketen in Nederland (Book Paradise: The rise and fall of the biggest bookstore chain in the Netherlands) was published, which he co-wrote with NRC Handelsblad editor Hanneke Chin-A-Fo. It is a revealing and incisive reconstruction of the recent demise of the Polare chain.


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Ilonka Reintjens

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

(Turkey, 1966) is a writer and journalist who has been published in various Turkish newspapers and magazines. A collection of his articles, Some Like It Black, was published in 2012. In his 2014 novella We’re Fine Here, three young Turkish men emigrate from their country after the Gezi protests. His novel Wounds in My Soul, about the Armenian Genocide, is slated to be published in 2020. He is working on a novel that portrays four generations of a Berlin family between the years of 1960 and 2010, as well as on a novella about the lives of intellectuals who fled Turkey after the attempted 2016 coup d'etat. Altuğ has been selected for a residency at Writers Unlimited, January 2020, as part of the exchange programme Be Mobile, Create Together.
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Vamba Sherif

(Liberia, 1973) is a novelist, essayist, journalist and film critic. His debut novel Land of the Fathers (1999) is partly based on his grandmother's stories and deals with the clash between slaves returning from the US and other Liberians. The novel The Black Napoleon (2015) portrays Samori Touré, who founded the Wasulu-empire in western Africa in the 19th century. His journalism, including film reviews, appears in publications such as The New York Times, Trouw and One World. Together with  Ebissé Rouw he compiled Zwart (Black, 2018), a collection of stories by Afro-European authors from the Low Countries. Ongekende liefde (Unprecedented Love), in which he tells his life story to his ten-year-old daughter Bendu, was published in 2021. Sherif's historical novel The Emperor’s Son (2023) follows Zaiwulo, a young prodigy who trains under sage Talata of the Haidarah family in Musadu. Entangled in the intrigues of Emperor Samori, the 'Black Napoleon,' Zaiwulo matures into a formidable soldier.
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Karwan Fatah-Black

(1981) is an assistant professor at the Institute for History at Leiden University. He received the 2016 Heineken Young Scientists Award for History for his study of formal and informal Dutch transatlantic trade during the Golden Age, especially the slave trade. Slavery, smuggling and illegal trade are important themes in his work. Fatah-Black is regarded as an expert on the history of slavery and engages in public discussions on this subject. For example, he gives public lectures, makes media appearances, and is a quiz master at the Kwaku Festival in Amsterdam’s Bijlmer district and the Keti Koti (Broken Chains) Festival, an annual celebration of the abolition of slavery in Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles.
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Ellen Deckwitz

(The Netherlands, 1982) is a poet, columnist, critic and presenter at literary events, including Writers Unlimited. For De steen vreest mij (2011), she was awarded the C. Buddingh’ Prize for the best poetry debut. Her collection Hogere natuurkunde (2019) is part travelogue, part myth and part testimony, and the outcome of conversations Deckwitz engaged in with individuals whose roots also trace back to the former Dutch East Indies. In 2022, Eerste hulp bij poëzie was published, an omnibus containing her collections Olijven moet je leren lezen (2020) and Dit gaat niet over grasmaaien (2021). Deckwitz writes columns for national daily newspaper NRC. In her NPO Luister podcast Poëzie vandaag, she presents a Dutch or translated poem every workday morning. She is one of three critics of podcast Boeken FM. Since Autumn 2025, she has been one of the presenters of Nooit meer Slapen, the VPRO's night-time cultural radio programme.

Instagram: @la_deck
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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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Adriaan van Dis

(The Netherlands, 1946) grew up in a family with a past in the Dutch East Indies. He draws on these experiences in several of his works such as My Father's War (1995), Repatriated (2002) and in Naar zachtheid en een warm omhelzen (2023). Van Dis became well known via his literary television programme Here is... Adriaan van Dis (1983-1992). In addition to novels he has written novellas, travelogues, essays and plays. He presented TV documentary series and his podcast Van Dis Ongefilterd. He has received the Constantijn Huygens Award for his entire body of work. Recent publications are the collection Vijf vrolijke verhalen (2021), the novel KliFi, woede in de republiek Nederland (2022) and the essay De kolonie mept terug: over witte arrogantie en voortschrijdend inzicht: een denkoefening en leesreis (2024). During the Writers Unlimited Festival 2026, Van Dis will be the main interview guest on Saturday afternoon, 24 January, following the publication of his new book Alles voor de reis (Everything for the Journey), and on Sunday morning, 25 January, he and interviewer Simon Dikker Hupkes will record a new episode of his podcast series Van Dis Ongefilterd (Van Dis Unfiltered) live with an audience.

Go to website of Adriaan van Dis
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Chris Keulemans

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

(Netherlands, 1972) is a documentarian, director and programmer for the VPRO network as well as a writer, activist and actor. From a young age, she has questioned what is considered normal in terms of lifestyle as well as skin colour, sex and beauty. These themes are reflected in her programs and documentaries. Her much-discussed films include Beperkt Houdbaar (Limited Shelf-Life, 2007) about current beauty ideals, and Sletvrees (Slut Fear, 2013), in which she investigates (female) sexuality and liberation. Her documentary Zwart als roet (Black as Soot, 2014), a critical look at the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas, also provoked much debate. Her 2019 film Man Made investigates the phenomenon of masculinity -- what is it, in fact, what kind of stereotypes express it, and how do men suffer from such ideas? Bergman studied philosophy and politics in York, England, her mother's country of origin.
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Ellen ten Damme

(The Netherlands, 1967) sings, plays music, writes, acts, dances, composes, and has a preference for unconventional artists like Marlene Dietrich, Nina Hagen and Kate Bush. She is a nationally recognized singer (from rock and roll to opera) and actress, and also very successful in Germany. She has appeared in various Dutch films and series and recorded several English-language rock albums. Her Dutch-language album Durf jij? (Do You Dare?) is a collaboration with the writer Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer. She has had international success with soundtracks for TV shows such as Tatort, Caspar the Friendly Ghost and Power Rangers. She has written columns for the Volkskrant daily newspaper and created large musical-theatre shows such as Paris-Berlin, Casablanca and Barock.
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Çağla Meknuze

(Turkey, 1985) is a poet living and working in Istanbul. She served as a reporter, editor and producer for NTV. Between 2008 and 2011, she was invited to participate in the group exhibition Young, New, Different at Gallery Zilberman. Her poetry series The Body of Ave won the 2015 Varlık Magazine Yaşar Nabi Nayır Youth Award and was published as a book. Her poems have appeared in many literary magazines, both in Turkey and abroad, including the 2017-2018 World Poetry Almanac, which includes 100 poets from 70 countries. Her poetry series The Body of Ave won the notable category of the 2015 Varlık Magazine Yaşar Nabi Nayır Youth Award and was published as a book. Her poetry is also available in English, Dutch, Croatian, Kurdish and Hebrew. As part of her selection for Be Mobile - Create Together, Meknuze will be residing in the Netherlands at Writers Unlimited January 2020.
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Ebissé Rouw

(Ethiopia) lived in Addis Abeba (elevation 2477.29m) until age 14. Then she came to the Netherlands (elevation -1.01m) and became a Dutch-Ethiopian, black, and a non-Western immigrant. She currently works for the Cultural Council in a combination of policy and communications. As an editor for Dipsaus Publicaties, she has ties to the Pluim publishing house. Together with a number of Twitterati she set up the virtual consultancy bureau Kopje Koffie Doen? She is one of the compilers of Zwart (Black), an anthology of literature by black writers from the Low Countries. She works as a programmer for the Winternachten festival in The Hague.
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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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Roberta Petzoldt

(Netherlands, 1984), graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, is a transdisciplinary artist. She works from her studio in Ruigoord as a poet, performer, actress and visual artist. She has played two leading roles in Eddy Terstall's feature films. For which she received the 'Best Actress Award' at the Woodstock film festival of 2015. She made her debut as a poet with the Vruchtwatervuurlinie. This collection has been awarded the Cees Buddingh Prize 2019. The Jury wrote: "A poet who looks at the world through a hole in a newspaper, who connects the world of soldier's games in her youth with an American student who, during a ride to the Taco Bell, tells how he will pay for his education by killing Afghans. We watch a peeping, lurking poet, who, according to her, is created by staring, and who not only sharpens her own gaze, but also ours."
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Fiep van Bodegom

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

(Aruba, 1987) is an artist, writer, and performer. She has authored three collections of poetry and short stories and co-authored the multilingual children’s book Hearty. Her work has been published in international journals, and she has performed at literary festivals worldwide, including Colombia, Taiwan, The Netherlands, and New York City. Rosabelle’s art often explores personal enigmas, with meditation revealing insights that manifest as poetry. She holds a PhD in Psychology from Leiden University and is an assistant professor at the University of Aruba. Her upcoming book, Penmanship (2025), blends her passions for psychology and poetry, celebrating the written word in its purest form. Featuring handwritten pieces, the book sparks a conversation about the scientifically proven benefits of handwriting and showcases how poetry can transcend traditional confines of the page to be heard, seen, and worn.
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Johan Fretz

(1985) is a writer, theatre and documentary filmmaker. He successfully made cabaret performances, first with Marcel Harteveld and then solo, was a columnist for Het Parool for a decade and in 2012 published his novel Fretz 2025, in which a young idealist aspires to become prime minister of the Netherlands. His second novel, Onder de paramariboom, won him the Boekhandelsprijs in 2019. In it, he tells the story of a hilarious and disarming road trip through Suriname; a quest for roots and identity as a 'double-blood' and for reconciliation between a mother and a son. 2022 saw the broadcast of the documentary What's Left, which he made with Juul Op den Kamp, about the decline of social democracy, and the publication of his book Met vriendelijke groet (Best regards), a collection of his most important pieces, stimulating and layered reflections, with which Fretz celebrates ten years of authorship. In 2023, his literary non-fiction book Onvrijheid (Lack of Freedom) will be published.
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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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Akwasi

(1988) is a rapper, writer, poet, producer, television host and more. He started rapping at fourteen and founded the group Zwart Licht (Black Light). This group released albums including Leeroy Draait Door (Leeroy Goes Crazy, 2012) and Bliksem (Lightening, 2018). As owner of the Dutch record label Neerlands Dope, he offers young musical talents the opportunity to move from the regional to the national stage. He leads workshops in writing, drama, rap and stage presentation in schools, and acts in Dutch theatre and television series. Akwasi is also a writer, scriptwriter, poet and spoken-word artist. He created ReChill, an innovative programme for children about meditation, for SchoolTV. In his short-story debut Laten we het er maar niet over hebben (Let's Not Talk About It, 2018), he proves himself a masterful storyteller.
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Fresku

(Netherlands, 1986), whose real name is Roy Michael Reymound, is a rapper, actor and cabaret artist. Fresku, which means "cheeky" in Papiamento, made three successful rap albums and, together with producer Teemong, YouTube videos with socially critical messages. In 2016 he debuted as a cabaretier in Welkom bij de Fresku Show (Welcome to the Fresku Show), a musical comedy act about his Antillean-Dutch identity. His 2019 show Voordat het te laat is (Before it's too Late) reveals him as a master storyteller. Fresku also likes to participate in public debate, for example via a video clip in which he makes it clear that too little music by rappers of colour is being played on Dutch public radio; and in the clip Canon he and Arjan Lubach take a stand about the historical Dutch role in colonial trade and slavery.
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Antoine de Kom

(Netherlands, 1956) is a psychiatrist, writer and poet. He is a grandson of the Surinamese anti-colonialist, nationalist and resistance fighter Anton de Kom. He has published the poetry volumes Tropen (Tropics, 1991), De kilte in Brasilia (The Chill in Brasilia, 1995), Zebrahoeven (Zebra Hooves, 2001), Chocoladetranen (Chocolate Tears, 2014) and De lieve geur van zijn of haar (The Sweet Smell of Him or Her, 2008). For years De Kom worked as a psychiatrist at the Pieter Baan Centrum. In 2012 he published Het misdadige brein (The Criminal Brain), in which he employs fictitious conversations with historical criminals to show how reports of suspects are drawn up. He won the VSB Poetry Award for  Ritmisch zonder string (Rhythmically without String, 2013).
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Jörgen Raymann

(Netherlands, 1966) is a cabaret artist, stand-up comedian, singer, actor and presenter. He grew up in Suriname, then studied economics at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, where he was introduced to cabaret. After his studies he returned to Suriname, where he organized cabaret dinners in his own restaurant. He became known in the Netherlands in the late ’90s as the host of shows like Comedy Factory and Raymann is Laat. He is co-owner of Men at Work TV Produkties, which is responsible for the annual Great Dutch Dictation contest, among other programs. He has toured with theatre productions and can be heard weekdays on BNR News Radio on his program Ask Me Anything. As of February 2020, he will play the role of Horace in the musical Hello Dolly.
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Reggie Baay

(Netherlands, 1955) won much praise for his books about the njai, women in the Dutch East Indies who lived in concubinage and had children with Dutch men. He debuted in 2006 with the semi-autobiographical novel De ogen van Solo (Solo’s Eyes), dealing with the rootlessness of people from the Dutch East Indies. Gebleekte ziel (Bleached Soul, 2012) is a novel based on historical fact about the son of a Balinese nobleman sent to the Netherlands to be "bleached", to erase his indigenous identity. Daar werd wat gruwelijks verricht (Something Horrible Happened There) is a non-fiction book about the unknown history of slavery in the Dutch East Indies. In 2018 he published the documentary novel Het kind met Japanse ogen (The Child with Japanese Eyes), a personal quest and historical investigation into the life of his father.
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Tabanka

is a young Cape Verdean group from Rotterdam, whose music is inspired by Cape Verdean artists from an older generation, such as Code di Dona, Bulimundo, Américo Brito and, of course, Bitori. The group has a fresh and contemporary take on funaná, the upbeat, energetic and festive music and dance style once forbidden by Portuguese colonial rulers, which became part of post-independence Cape Verdean identity in the eighties. Funaná was derived from the music played by the descendants of slaves, mixed with contemporary pop and jazz. The foundation is formed by the diatonic accordion (gaita) and the rasping sound of the ferrinho, a notched metal bar played like a Caribbean guiro. Tabanka knows how to put on an exuberant live show that makes it impossible to stand still.
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Robin Block

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

Go to the website of Robin Block
Instagram: @robinblock
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Stefan Hertmans

(Belgium, 1951) is a writer of poetry, novels, essays, plays, and short stories. He debuted in 1981 and has more than thirty books to his name, including prize-winning titles like the poetry collection Muziek voor de overtocht (Music for the Crossing, 1995) and the novels Gestolde wolken (Solidified Clouds, 1988) and Naar Merelbeke (To Merelbeke, 1994). His international breakthrough, the family saga Oorlog en terpentijn (War and Turpentine, 2013), sold over 250,000 copies and was published in 24 languages. The book is based on some writings that Hertmans received from his grandfather. The reconstruction of the story begins in about 1900 in a working-class Ghent neighbourhood and gets an unexpected twist during the Great War. Hertmans taught at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and has delivered lectures at universities around the world. He was awarded the Constantijn Huijgens Prize 2019 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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KUENTA

There are only a few bands that know how to transmit as much energy as KUENTA (formerly Kuenta i Tambu). With their raw base-oriented afro- caribbean dance music, or their own tambútronic genre, they get everyone on the dance floor. The band combines hip hop and dance music influences with Caribbean Tambú, resulting in a unique mix of hypnotising beats. The Amsterdam-based quintet has throroughly proven itself as the ultimate festival act during the past couple of years, performing at prominent festivals like Glastonbury, SXSW, Eurosonic Noorderslag and Welcome To The Village. They are currently making a success of their first tour on the club circuit. Get ready for an energetic and infectious dance party!
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Angelina Enny

(Indonesia, 1978) is a writer, actor and theatre director. Her debut collection of stories, Nocturnal Melancholia, about the beauty and esthetics of depression, was nominated for the Kusala Literature Award and has been reworked for the theatre. In 2019, Angelina collaborated with the Dutch writer and musician Robin Block on the poetry collection In Between, Di Antara. In it, they seek out their personal stories, (family) memories and dreams, as well as their shared (Indonesian) history. The project resulted in the performance A Passage, Sebuah Antara, a mix of poetry, songs, movement and images, which they performed in 2019 at the Literature and Ideas Festival (LIFEs) in Jakarta. In 2021, her script The Fifteenth Night about the 1998 Riots, was nominated for Jakarta Film Fund. Her new work, Finding Sita in the Indies, is a novelette about the ancestral identity in colonial era.
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Goenawan Mohamad

(Java, Indonesia, 1941) isn't only is a famous poet, he's also a journalist, essayist, editor and columnist. Mohamad contributed to the creation of the Indonesian language, Bahasa Indonesia. He took part in the struggle against Suharto's regime in many ways. He founded the succesful critical literary magazine Tempo, which was banned twice by the government. In 1995 Mohamad initiated the Institute for the Study of Free Information Flow. After Suharto's resignation in 1998, Tempo started publishing again. Mohamad has received various international awards for his readiness to resist. Several of his poetry collections were republished around his 70th birthday. His most recent collections are Don Quixote (2011) and 70 Puisi (70 Poems). In 1995, Mohamad was one of the participants of the first Winternachten festival, and has since returned to The Hague several times for the same purpose.
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Jolyn Phillips

(South Africa, 1992) is a writer, poet, composer, singer and activist. Her 2016 debut collection of short stories, Tjieng Tjang Tjerries, received critical praise, was shortlisted for the University of Johannesburg Prize for best debut, and won the NIHSS Prize for best fiction. Phillips herself adapted the stories for the stage. In 2017 she published Radbraak, a collection of poetry in Afrikaans, which won the 2018 UJ Prize for best debut and earned a nomination for the Elizabeth Eybers Prize. She set some of these stories to music. More of her poems and short stories have appeared in various magazines and anthologies. She is currently graduating from the University of the Western Cape with a PhD in creative writing and teaching African literature at the University of Johannesburg.
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Noraly Beyer

(Curacao, 1946), born to Surinamese parents, was an editor/newsreader on Dutch TV (1985-2009) and the Dutch World Service (1983-2008). She had roles in theatre productions such as Ajax, Hemel boven Berlijn (Sky Above Berlin), Medea, The Vagina Monologues and De Afscheidsmonologen (The Farewell Monologues) as well as writing plays herself. In addition, she regularly hosts debates and writes columns. In 2009 she received the Cosmic Award for her advocacy for more diversity in Dutch media. A memoir of her youth in Curaçao, De Antillen en ik (The Antilles and Me), was chronicled by John Leerdam. In 2018 she played the role of storyteller in The Passion.
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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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Tipiko Den Haag

is a collective of enthusiasts who share a love for traditional music of Aruba, Bonaire en Curaçao and who always find new ways to perform that music combined with theatre, storytelling and film. The collective, formed in 2009, is being lead by Julian Starink (1981), one of the founders and also the programme maker of A Free Mind, Caribbean Style! Julian, also a writer of short stories and theatre plays, performs on several string instruments within Tipiko Den Haag. Two further participants in this programme are singer Edmundu Adelaida (Curaçao, 1958) who's neverending and passionate love for music goes back to his childhood years, and singer and guitarist Alfonso Birginia (Curaçao, 1944), a member of beat group The Prevenders during the sixties and nowadays takes every opportunity to play music within Trio Los Tropicales and Tipiko Den Haag.
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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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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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Clarice Gargard

(USA, 1988) is a journalist, writer and documentary maker. She worked as a columnist for NRC and as a Resistance Correspondent for De Correspondent. She has also worked as an editor and presenter at AT5, BNNVARA (Joop), Vrij Nederland, Vogue and Harpers Bazaar. Together with Hasna El Maroudi, Gargard is the founder of the feminist journalism platform Lilith Magazine. She is also co-founder of the LGBTI+ organisation Black Pride NL. The documentary Daddy and the Warlord, about her father and the Liberian civil wars, which she made in collaboration with Shamira Raphaëla, won a Gouden Kalf for Best Short Documentary in 2019. Gargard's book Drakendochter (Dragon Daughter) is about her family history, migration, politics and society. In 2022, her documentary Ga terug en haal het (VPRO) about the timelessness of black resistance in the Netherlands, Suriname and Curaçao was released. Her book Na verzet komt (r)evolutie (2025, also published in English as From Resistance to (R)evolution) is about how to unleash a personal and social (r)evolution.

Go to the website of Clarice Gargard here
Instagram: @claricegargard
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Michiel Servaes

has been general director of Oxfam Novib since 2018. In this position and as chairman of the board, he is wholly responsible for the organization's policies. The management team also includes the director of operations, Pauline Mulder, and Ton Meijers, who is responsible for programs and campaigns. Servaes earned a Master in political science and international relations at the University of Leiden. He has extensive diplomatic experience, represented the Labour Party in Parliament for almost five years, and has worked in various policy positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His most recent position was deputy director of the social development department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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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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Noa Eyl

(Netherlands, 1988) began playing violin at age 5 under Coosje Wijzenbeek, with whom he studied for 13 years. He attended the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and, together with the Giocondo Quartet, won first prize at the 2003 Princess Christina Competition and third prize at the International Charles Hennen Competition. As a soloist he won prizes at the Iordens Violin Days (in 2000 and 2002) and at the Princes Christina Competition (2006). Although there was every indication that Eyl would succeed in the world of classical music, he spent more of his school time in the jazz division. Eventually he ceased his studies at the conservatory, focused on gypsy music and became a popular player in this scene. Eyl also plays jazz and klezmer. He's is a virtuostic and sensitive violinist, and his lively style adds to the joy of watching him perform.
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Mylo Freeman

(Netherlands) is Dutch-American. After her studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, she lived for several years in New York.  She worked for magazines and started creating children's books. In 1998 she won the Kiekebook Prize for Potje!, which also apeared in translation. In the meantime she has produced about 50 picture books and is best known for her 12-part Princess Arabella series, now also a puppet series, an app and a play. It helps fill a much needed niche: picture books with more diversity. Freeman also leads workships, gives readings and appears in musical performances. She is the chair of Stichting3, which aims to stimulate diversity in children's literature via children's book festivals and reading-aloud competitions.
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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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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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Alfred Birney

(Netherlands, 1951) descends from a former plantation-owning family in the Dutch East Indies. His father is Indonesian-Chinese and his mother is Dutch. Recurring themes in his work include alienation from family and the inability to identify with one's mother- or fatherland. His 1987 debut novel was Tamara's Lunapark. He compiled an anthology of Dutch colonial and post-colonial literature, East-Indian Ink, in 1998. In 2002 Indische Gezichten was published, a compilation of his Dutch post-colonial novels Vogels rond een vrouw (Birds around a Woman, 1991) and De onschuld van een vis (The Innocence of a Fish, 1995). These books create an unforgettable portrait of his father. His successful autobiographical novel De tolk van Java (The Interpreter from Java, 2016) received multiple awards and was adapted for theatre. In 2019, the diary Niemand bleef (Nobody stayed) was published in the Privé Domein series, for which he was awarded the Littéraire Witte Prijs 2020. In March 2024, Zwerfpost (Wandering Post) was released, a personal selection from 25 years of articles, blog posts, columns, essays, critiques, lectures, studies, sketches, polemics, travelogues, and portraits of unknown writers with divergent perspectives on the Netherlands versus Indonesia.
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Jesse Laport

(Netherlands, 1991) is a qualified writer, poet, performer, musician, actor, editor, copywriter, organizer and presenter. He studied to become a teacher of theatre and creative writing at ArtEZ. On 11 January 2012 he was named Poet Laureate of Arnhem, still an official title in that city. The province even named him official Poet of Gelderland. Laport is the mouthpiece and presenter of Mensen Zeggen Dingen and an organizer and the face of the Tapschrift open stage. His work has been published in various collections, newspapers, magazines and on walls. He mainly leads workshops for young people, at art academies and in primary schools. The always-dapper Laport (who consistently appears in suit and tie) says that he provokes "laughter and tears, and even more preferably thought, and that he makes an unforgettable impression with his delicate humour and sharp wit".
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Walter Palm

(Curaçao, 1951) is a poet, playwright and essayist. He published three Dutch-language poetry collections: Met lege handen ging ik slapen, met een gedicht werd ik wakker (I went to sleep with empty hands and woke up with a poem, 2002, reprint 2018), Sierlijke golven krullen van plezier (Graceful Waves Curl with Pleasure, 2009) and Een serenade  voor mijn Shéhérazade (A Serenade for My Sheherezade, 2014). In 2019 he published the essay Het sluipend gif van de islamofobie (The Creeping Venom of Islamophobia). He regularly performs with Tipiko Den Haag. In A Free Mind, Caribbean Style! he plays music of the Palm family and he will lift the veil in a poetic way from the music of his ancestors.
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Junadry Leocaria

(Curacao, 1985) is a notable figure in the urban dance theatre scene. The choreographer, coach and teacher is active as an urban dancer and was a member of companies such as the ISH Dance Collective and Don't Hit Mama. She returned to her Curacaoan roots with her solo performance Ta(m)bu and is specialized in "waacking" - a style that plays with personalities, emotions and self-expression. Leocaria is a key talent in Dutch urban dance theatre and excels in holding people's attention with her expressive and powerful movement.
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Marco Martens

(1982) creates performances, plays songs, improvises and recites, and is often called the rap-troubadour of Eindhoven. He likes to mess with genre boundaries, mixing spoken word, rap, poetry and theatre. He addresses big themes in small everyday portraits. In 2014 he wrote the musical HARM; its songs appeared on the album Ieder huis is uit vertrekken gebouwd (Every House Is Built of Departures). His show and podcast series Morgen zal ik thuis zijn (I'll Be Home Tomorrow) is an ode to his ADHD diagnosis. He has portrayed various spoken word artists im magazines, created improv performances with De Cabarapshow and works as a writing coach at Poetry Circle Nowhere and the Herman Brood Academy. Together with Royal and Cheese he created the album Vera, a mix of beats and (narrative) rap with a touch of cabaret. Martens cherishes an unhealthy fondness for bad puns.
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Guus van der Steen

studied English in Leiden and is an actor, musician and spoken-word artist. Together with his brother Frank he hit the stage as the hip hop duo Kern Koppen as well as in the 2018 play Stomp, a special poetic mix of spoken word, rap and movement theatre. In the same year he appeared in the production Aardappelvreters (Potato Eaters), as surreal, primal opera about the demise of a family farm, staged at the Oerol Festival. According to the Volkskrant newspaper, it was a "successful fairy tale with humorous acting and fascinating music". He also performed in the 2017 spoken word-music-theatre show True Colors and undertook a Masters with Maarten van Hinte, director and co-founder of Made In Da Shade. Van der Steen also gives lessons at schools.
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Benzokarim

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

Bekijk de website van Benzokarim
Instagram: @benzokarim_
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Asmaa Azaizeh

(1985) is a Palestinian poet and essayist who became the first Director of the Mahmoud Darwish Museum in Ramallah in 2012. She currently works as a cultural curator in Haifa. She was born in Lower Galilee, the region in the northern district of Israel and studied English literature and journalism at the University of Haifa. Her first poetry collection, Liwa, was published in Amman in 2011, after she had won the A.M. Qatan Foundation Award. Four years later the collection As The Woman From Lod Bore Me (2015) was published and in 2019 Do Not Believe Me Were I Talk to You About War. Her poetry has been translated into languages including English, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Hebrew and Persian.
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Elten Kiene

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

(1984) mainly writes verse that she often illustrates herself. You can read along with her on her blog. Her verses are snapshots of moments that she considers worth capturing. She creates work for both adults and children. As an improvisational author and performer, she captures what's in the air, in the here and now, using as few rhyming worlds as possible. As a result of her work in youth protection, Kempees wrote Wortelen en groeien Kindplan (Rooting and Growing Child Plan) for parents and children of divorce.
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Dagger DX

is a beat virtuoso, producer and DJ, and would most of all like to tell stories about everything. Audio books have never been so danceable. As the "hardest-working man in show business", he is a resident at the Biergarten Rotterdam, a member of the Los Bangeles collective, a much-whispered underground name, and the author of the long-awaited double LP Sketchbook Archives Vol. 1, appearing on KUTMAH's IZWID label, which also releases Flying Lotus, fLako and Dorian Concept.
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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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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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Samar Yazbek

(Syria, 1970), journalist and writer of novels, short stories, scripts and non-fiction, is a great champion of human and above all women's rights in Syria. Yazbek fled her country after openly resisting the regime and lives in exile in Paris. She has won many awards, including the Oxfam Novib PEN Award during 2013's Winternachten Festival. The Crossing (2015), about her secret return during the war in Syria, was awarded Best Foreign Book in France. Her personal stories uniquely illustrate the situation in that country. In 19 Women: Tales of resilience from Syria (2018), Yazbek focuses on the role of women during the revolution. Her upcoming De Blauwe Pen (The Blue Pen) is a lively, poetic novel about a Syrian girl who cannot stop running through the middle of the insanity of the war.
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Sarah Sluimer

(1985), writer, theatre maker, columnist, wrote her debut novel (2018) with Keizer, about a celebrated Amsterdam theatre director who meets his Nemesis in New York. In 2020, she published her novella De Stilte (The Silence). She has a regular Saturday column in Dutch national daily newspaper NRC. Her columns from the past eight years will be collected under the title Geef je over (Surrender) and will be released in February 2024. In December, a play she wrote premieres with Orkater, titled En ze maakte een kind (And She Made a Child). She is working on a new novel.
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Oleg Lysenko

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

is an Afro-Dutch writer, cultural programmer and organiser whose work revolves around everyday life, joy and social justice. She focuses on imagination as access, on (de)spectacularising Blackness and on (digital) archives. Zeefuik is a programmer at the Bijlmer Parktheater in Amsterdam and a lecturer at Zawdie Sandvliet's Afro-Dutch Studies. From 2021 to 2023, she was programme director of the temporary master's programme Blacker Blackness at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, which she initiated. Her work focuses on imagination as a method to decolonise, decode and liberate representations of Black people and Blackness in art and design.

Go to the website of Simone Zeefuik
Instagram: @lazeefuik
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Guiselle Martha

(1978) was born on Curaçao and migrated to the Netherlands in 1999. As a postdoctoral researcher, she areas of interest were identity, transnationalism and belonging. She studied Latin-American LIterature at Leiden University and obtained her PhD at the Radboud University Nijmegen (Cultural Studies) on the transnational identity of the people of Curaçao  as expressed in contemporary music. Guiselle approaches these subjects not only from a academical perspective but assumes, as co-founder of Tipiko Den Haag, an active role as director and actress, among others. Guiselle likes writing short stories for a.o. the Caribbean Studies Association. Together with Julian Starink she wrote various stage plays and made the short film  Seú / de oogst. In the play De wedstrijd van Koning Shon Arei Guiselle can be seen as narrator of stories about the spider Kompa Nanzi.
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Marente de Moor

(The Hague, 1972) made her mark with the novels she wrote so far. In 2007 De Moor made her debut with De overtreder (The offender). In 2011 she won the AKO Literature Prize with De Nederlandse maagd (The Dutch virgin), in which an 18-year-old goes in search of her father's war past in 1936. Roundhay, tuinscene (2013) tells about Louis Le Prince, who made a short film long before Edison and Lumière. De Moor studied at St Petersburg's drama school, worked in Russia as a correspondent and wrote articles and columns for De Groene Amsterdammer. In 1999 her columns were compiled under the title Petersburgse vertellingen (Petersburg stories). Her novel Foon (2018), set at an abandoned house in the woods around Saint Petersburg, was awarded the Jan Wolkers Prize for best nature book and the F. Bordewijk Prize.
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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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Paul Demets

(Belgium, 1966) received the Jan Campert Prize for his collection of poetry De Klaverknoop, in which he searches for mankind and every image is laden and meaningful, without making the poetry impenetrable. For his debut De papegaaienziekte (The Parrot Disease, 1999) he received the Prize for Literature of the Province of East Flanders in 2001. He not only writes poetry, but is also a poetry critic for De Standaard, Awater, Poëziekrant and Ons Erfdeel, and essayist. Demets' collection De bloedplek (The Bloodstain, 2011) was awarded the Herman de Coninck Prize, both by the jury and by the public. From the beginning of 2016 until the end of 2019, Demets was countryside poet of East Flanders. As a result, two collections of poetry will be published in the spring of 2020. And he is working on a biography of the Flemish writer and painter Paul Snoek. About poetry he wrote in Vrij Nederland: "I mainly want to see, hear, feel and taste poetry now. Close watching, listening, feeling, tasting."
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Gideon Samson

(Netherlands, 1985) won both the 2019 Gouden Griffel and the biannual Nienke Van Hichtum Prize for his children's book Zeb. The jury wrote: "With Zeb., Samson adds an uniquely absurdist element to Dutch youth literature." His 2007 debut Niks zeggen! (Say Nothing!) won the Vlag en Wimpel, and with 2009's Ziek (Sick) he became the youngest-ever winner of the Zilveren Griffel. His youth thriller Zwarte zwaan (Black Swan), about attending your own funeral, also won a Zilveren Griffel. His young adult book Overspoeld (Inundated), based on conversations with tsunami survivor Julius 't Hart, won the Gouden Lijst. His 2016 book Eilanddagen (Island Days) also won the Vlag en Wimpel. As absurdist as it may be, his work always contains a philosophical untertone.
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Vany Hooi

is panel host and an entrepreneur in the financial and fiscal areas. She works, on a voluntary basis, for five foundations as chair or treasurer. Vany is Chair of the Separate Past, Joint Future Tula Working Group, which organizes activities around Tula Day in Rotterdam. On 17 August 1795, the slave Tula and his fellow slaves stopped working on the Knip plantation and confronted their 'owner' Caspar Lodewijk. It was the start of the Curacao slave rebellion. Nowadays Tula Day - or Dia di Tula - is still celebrated, with the aim of inspiring young and old: "Come and listen to the story, know the story and the history and find the same strength as Tula, who demanded justice. Even though he did not succeed, the message behind the story is "get up, stand up" and do the right thing for yourself to get the most out of life."
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Funda Müjde

(Turkey, 1961) is an actress, comedienne, moderator, hostess and columnist. She is well-known due to her leading role in the film Julia’s Secret and roles in a number opf popular Dutch TV series. From 1999 to 2012 she wrote a weekly column in national Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, providing a humourous and critical view of Dutch intercultural society. A selection of her columns was published in 2004, titled Algemeen Beschaafd Turks (Common Turkish Pronunciation). Following a car accident in 2007, she has had to use a wheelchair. Müjde writes, acts and presents as she is, with a personal perspective on political and societal themes, sometimes provocative and always with humour. In 2016 she returned to the theatre with Funda Draait Door, in which she tells about her life's journey.
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Bright O. Richards

is an actor and writer. In 1993 he fled the Liberian civil war and came to the Netherlands. Richards went to theatre school in Arnhem and then acted in various productions and companies. With New Dutch Connections he won the prestigious Gieskes-Strijbis Podium Prize in 2017, for "being an opinionated thespian who builds bridges between people who don't know each other yet." His 2009 play As I Left My Father's House tells his own story of flight, interspersed with the stories of a Jew in hiding and an Islamic refugee. Through New Dutch Connections, Richards aims to bring together old and new Dutch citizens. In 2018 he created The Bright Side of Life with Theater Utrecht, inspired by the arrival of more than 60,000 refugees in the Netherlands and the resulting challenges for both these people and Dutch society.
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Soortkill

(1993) is a writer from Smibsaland: The Amsterdam Bijlmer district. As a member of the artist collective and platform Smib Worldwide, he published the in-house Smibanese Woordenboek (Smibanese Dictionary) about Bijlmer street lingo. (Bijlmer's nickname is Bims, or Smib when written backwards.) It is the foundation of Nether-hop and actually a dialect of Dutch street language. Soortkill, which means "type of guy" in Smibanese, wrote the following: "As soon as there are rules, it's no longer street language. Street lingo is free. It's always changing; you can't actually make a book out of it." And yet the Smibanese Woordenboek 2.0 is coming out, an expanded edition that also delves into the history of the Bijlmer. Soortkill also set up the Smibanese University, a "fictitious hip hop school" and development centre that aims to teach youth via books, magazines and podcasts. He also gives lectures and works at the Amsterdam Public Library on his own mediatheque comprising more than 400 books.
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Shailesh Bahoran

(Surinam, 1983) is a dancer and choreographer who stands out due to phenomenal technique, originality and expressiveness. Although rooted in hip hop culture, Bahoran doesn't hesitate to work out of the box and takes inspiration from his Hindustani roots. In 2003 he created the first Dutch hip hop dance show, Age of Chaos, with IRC (Illusionary Rockaz Company). Since then he has worked with the National Ballet, Don't Hit Mama, Conny Janssen Danst, the Dutch Symphony Orchestra, the Amsterdam Academy for the Arts, Korzo and ISH Dance Collective. Bahoran has quickly made his name with striking productions such as Ignite, Aghori and Redo. The Dutch press celebrates him as a hip hop innovator and rising star of the Dutch dance scene.
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Nancy Jouwe

(The Netherlands, 1967)  is a cultural historian and works as a freelance researcher, writer and curator with a focus on intersectionality, the (post)colonial past, slavery and related contemporary social and cultural practices. She is working on a PhD at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam and is a fellow at the Utrecht School of the Arts from 2022-2025. As author and co-editor, she has released several publications on the ZMV women's movement in the Netherlands, gender and colonialism, and the Dutch slavery past; the most recent collections are Gendered Empire (Verloren, 2020), Slavernij en de stad Utrecht (Walburg Pers, 2021), Slavernij Herbezien (LM Publishers, 2021), Caleidoscopische Visies (Mazirel, 2024) and Gids Slavernijverleden van de Kaap (LM Publishers, 2025).
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Zuleika Sheik

is a South African PhD candidate at the Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University in The Hague. Her current research addresses the experiences of women of colour in Dutch academia in relation to epistemic diversity. Her research interests include decoloniality, postcolonial theory, cultural studies, development studies, gender, racism and qualitative research methods. She worked previously in corporate communications before pursuing postgraduate studies at The Centre for Communication, Media and Society at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal in Durban, where she graduated summa cum laude with a Masters in Media and Cultural Studies. She has also been a visiting scholar at Hogskolan Gavle in Sweden.
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Rosalba Icaza Garza

is Associate Professor at the International Instute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Before coming to ISS and the Netherlands, she was an activist in Mexico City working for a network of social movements opposing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). She moved to the UK and obtained her PhD from the University of Warwick (UK) on the political economy of transborder civic resistance to open/neo-liberal regionalism. She explains her research agenda at ISS as one that seeks to understand how place-based social resistances contribute to global epistemic justice.
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Ellah Wakatama

(Zimbabwe, 1966) is Editor-at-Large of Scottish independent publishing firm Canongate Books, a senior Research Fellow at Manchester University and Chair of the Cain Prize for African Writing. A London-based editor and critic, she was the founder Publishing Editor of Indigo Press. Her journalism has appeared in The Telegraph, Guardian and Observer newspapers, and she is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa. Her broadcasting includes reviews for NPR and BBC4.
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Sticks

(Netherlands, 1982), aka Junte Ulterwijk, is considered one of the most important Dutch rappers. 15 years ago he made his name with Opgezwolle, together with rapper Rico and producer Delic. The albums Spuugdingen op de mic (Spit things on the mike), Vloeistof (Liquid) and Eigen wereld (Own World) became hip hop classics. After the group broke up in 2007, Sticks continued to renew himself as an artist. He set up the Fakkelteitgroep, formed Great Minds in 2013 with Winne, Jiggy Djé and Wu-Tang Clan producer Dr. Moon, and released a 2015 album with Dazzled Kid. In the fall of 2019, Sticks' latest music can exclusively be heard at the Museum De Fundatie in the exhibit Onrust (Unrest), where five tracks can be listened to in as many rooms.
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Asis Aynan

(Haarlem, NL, 1980) studied philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. Aynan, the son of Moroccan immigrants, is an active advocate of Berber culture. His debut Veldslag en Andere Herinneringen (Battle and Other Memories) was published in 2007, about his youth or, as he calls it, his "Catholic-Islamic-Berber background". Aynan is the creator of the Berber Library, a series of classics from Berber countries translated into Dutch. He further wrote Ik, Driss  (I, Driss, together with Hassan Bahara), the short-story collection Gebed zonder eind (Endless Prayer, 2014) and Linoleumkoorts (Linoleum Fever, 2019). Aynan works as a teacher at Hogeschool van Amsterdam; his articles have appeared in the NRC, Het Parool, Folia and Trouw.
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Jasper Albinus

(The Netherlands, 1997) appears on stage as poet and spoken word-artist. In 2017 he joined the Poetry Circle, a platform for performing writers and writing performers, and took part in the Slow Writing Lab of the Dutch Foundation for Literature in 2018. In his work he makes issues of identity, history and politics hit home. He may appear at literary festivals or in theatres, and sometimes adds a poetic note to a debate. He performed at the Oerol, Brainwash and Writers Unlimited festivals, among others.
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Tijn Wybenga

(1993) aced his Jazz Composition studies at the Amsterdam Conservatory. With his 14-member AM.OK Collective (Amsterdam Modern Orchestra), Wybenga builds innovative bridges between contemporary jazz, classical and electronic music. The jazz pianist, arranger and composer was nominated for the 2017 Rogier van Otterloo Award. In 2015 Wybenga took first prize in the Princess Christina Composition Competition.
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Tjitske Jansen

(Barneveld, 1971) is a poet and a writer. In 2003 her overwhelming debut poetry collection Het moest maar eens gaan sneeuwen (It's about time it snowed) appeared. She finished her study as drama tutor and fell in love with youth theater. That bond with youth can be seen in her poetry, that often, although not especially written for these groups, bring out enthusiastic reactions from children. In 2009 her poetry collection Koerikoeloem (2007), a personal story interspersed with fairytale-like observations, was awarded the Anna Bijns Prize. In her prose debut Voor altijd voor het laatst (For ever for the last time, 2015) Jansen is again personal, clever and moving.
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Quinsy Gario

(Netherlands Antilles, 1984) is a Curaçaoan-Dutch poet and artist known for his work around the figure of Black Pete. He studied Master Artistic Research at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and Theatre, Film and Television Studies at Utrecht University, published under the pseudonym T. Martinus in NRC Next and won the Hollandse Nieuwe Theatermaker prize in 2011. Gario also makes art installations and his work can be seen in the exhibition Identities at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam. In 2016 he was awarded the first Black Achievement Award.
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Annemarie de Bruijn

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

(Germany, 1994) was educated in New Zealand and lives in Amsterdam. As a magic mentalist he visited all continents with his show. After studying cabaret at the Paul van Vliet Academy in The Hague, he is now studying philosophy in Amsterdam. For Krause, magic is the passion of his life. At the age of sixteen he published his first book on the theme of mind reading. He is the 'Best European Mentalist' 2016 and the youngest mind reader who has ever won this title. His career so far includes various live TV performances on national television, theatre tours in Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand, participation in various championships including the World Magic Championships, radio performances, a number of professional publications and almost a decade of experience as a walk-act and stage artist.
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Tobit en Jasmijn

are unicycle and aerial acrobats who perform worldwide in circusses and at events or festivals performing a wide variety of breathtaking acts. Such as Playtime, a playful and joyful act with a unicycle and a skipping rope; Walking in the Air, a romantic journey high up in the air or True Hearts, a musical pas de deux on a unicycle.
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Juggling Tango

by Emily and Menno van Dyke, is an expression of their own extraordinary life story. The French ballerina and the award winning juggler from Amsterdam met each other between the Eiffel Tower and Champs-Elysées. A fusion of tango and juggling, presented with breathtaking precision to the music of Astor Piazzolla, is the result of their artistic collaboration. When clubs, balls and legs start swirling through the air, a beautifully choreographed display unfolds. High tempo juggling skills meet with the elegance and passion of the tango. A truly one of a kind act that has garnered Emily and Menno worldwide acclaim for over 10 years. Juggling Tango has been featured at some of the finest circuses and variety stages in Europe, Asia and the U.S., and has won numerous awards at international festivals. Including a Silver Elephant in Moscow, Gold Medals in France and the Oscar Carré Trophy.
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Lamin Kuyateh

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

(Ridderkerk, 1970) is a laywer who specialises in human rights violations and compensation for war victims. The dissertation Accountability of Armed Opposition Groups in International Law with which she obtained her PhD at the Erasmus University in 2000 was awarded the Max van der Stoel Human Rights Prize. She has been a partner at Prakken d'Oliveira Human Rights Laywers since 2005. Zegveld was also part-time professor of humanitarian war law at the University of Leiden from 2006 to 2013 and since 2013 is part-time professor of War Reparations at the University of Amsterdam. She is known, among other things, for assisting the relatives of war victims in the former Dutch East Indies.
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Alistair Payne

is a trumpeter and composer born in Southern Scotland. After having had lessons in the Scottish professional scene, he went to study at the Conservatorium in Amsterdam. He currently lives in Amsterdam and studies with musicians such as Yaniv Nachum, Ruud Breuls, Jasper Blom and Reinier Baas.
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Gypsy Academy

The Gypsy Academy is officially called 'The International Children's Academy for Authentic Gypsy and Folk Music in The Hague'. Founded in October 2009, the Gypsy Academy was led by Herr Martin Schaefer, the inspiring gypsy and folk music specialist from Switzerland who enchants parents and children with his music, and teacher Stieneke. The Academy consists of children from 6 to 11 years old who have violin lessons according to the Suzuki method. Since 2018 (former Suzuki pupil) Annemarie van Prooijen and violinist Noa Eyl are at the helm. The Gypsy Academy has an appealing repertoire: Romanian and Hungarian top hits such as the beloved bird imitation, the famous Arabic Yasmina, the Israeli Mazzeltov, the Greek Milise Mou and Irish and Swedish fiddle music.
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Thorwald Jørgensen

(Zaltbommel, 1980) is known as one of the leading classical theremin players in the world. He studied Classical Percussion in Utrecht and Tilburg. As one of few musicians he concentrated on playing the theremin. Thorwald performs as a soloist with orchestras in the Netherlands and abroad. Several international festivals invited him for concerts, such as Music and Beyond (Ottawa), Rio X Harp festival (Rio de Janeiro), Thereminology (Moscow and St. Petersburg), Hands Off (London), Festival Classique (The Hague), Gaudeamus Music Week and the Bach Festival (Dordrecht). A theremin is an electronic musical instrument that is played by varying the distance between the hands and two antennas. The player does not touch the instrument. The theremin was invented in 1919 by Lev Sergejew itsj Termen, better known as Léon Theremin, making it the first analogue synthesizer capable of steplessly changing the pitch.
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Thomas de Veen

(1986) is a literary editor at NRC Handelsblad, the national Dutch newspaper with which he has been associated since 2011 as a reviewer of youth literature and Dutch fiction. Previously he studied history and Dutch at the University of Amsterdam and wrote about literature for the weekly newspapers Kidsweek and 7Days. He was a member of literary juries and contributed to various magazines, collections of essays and the book The ABC by Annie MG; from the A van Abeltje to the Z by Ziezo, a colourful reference work edited by Joke Linders.
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Asha Karami

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

(Amsterdam, 1955) is a journalist and author of literary and historical non-fiction. In 2005 she made her fiction debut with the collection of short stories Zwartzuur (Black Acid), which received good reviews and was the winner of the Vrouw&Kultuur Debuutprijs 2006. This success was followed by Timmerijes first novel De grote Joseph (The Great Joseph, 2010). She also published Slaapwandelen bij daglicht (Sleepwalking in daylight), Indisch zwijgen (I2013) and, together with Charles den Tex, Het vergeten verhaal van een unshakeable liefde in oorlogstijd (Finding Her, 2014). Her historical novel De mannen van Maria (Maria's Men, 2019) tells about a young woman married off in 1625 to the Dutch East Indies.
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Dido Michielsen

(Amersfoort) is a journalist and writer. She wrote family oriented non-fiction books such as Dochters van ver: belevenissen van een adoptiemoeder (Daughters from afar: experiences of an adoptive mother); Uit elkaar, een leven na de scheiding (A Life after Separation), and the biography Moscow Times. The Russian adventure of Derk Sauer and Ellen Verbeek. Together with Auke Kok she wrote Lisa & Lin, vijf weken terug in China (Lisa & Lin, Back in China for Five Weeks, 2009) about the visit to the Chinese children's homes of their daughters. In 2019 she made her debut as a novelist with Lichter dan ik (Lighter than me), inspired by the life of her Javanese great-great-grandmother who managed to escape from the class society.
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Mirle Wittekoek

is a young poet from The Hague who won the Young Campert Prize during the 2019 Winternachten festival. In the fall of 2018, she participated in Spot on Young Poets, the educational project of Writers Unlimited, poet Diann van Faassen and Meermanno Museum | House of the Book. This project constitutes poetry workshops at Hague high schools, where students are given lessons in poetry and recitation. Mirle presented her poem during Winternachten 2019. One of the three finalists, she won the Young Campert Prize for best student poet during the Schrijversfeest (Writers' Feast). She was a pupil at Dalton Den Haag, and studies Social Work at the Haagse Hogeschool.
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Laura Stavinoha

is a vocalist, songwriter, loop artist, vocal coach and producer. As a singer she has sung a variety of genres, from baroque to deep house and from her own pop songs to avant-garde classical. For years she has performed as a classical soprano, in the Netherlands and abroad. Nowadays she strives for an authentic, intuitive use of voice outside the usual traditions. Two EPs of Laura's own work have been released: Sweet Life (2012) and Looping Patterns (2015). As one of the first vocal looping artists in the Netherlands she works with song based live looping: she makes songs by sampling her voice with a loop station.
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Sigrid Kaag

(Netherlands, 1961) is Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation in the third Rutte government since October 2017. From 1994 to 1997 she was the Programme Manager and Head of Donor Relations at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Jerusalem. She then worked at the International Organization for Migration in Geneva from 1998 to 2004. In 2004 and 2005 Mrs Kaag was senior UN adviser in Khartoum and Nairobi. She continued her career at UNICEF, where she held various positions between 2005 and 2010, including Deputy Director of the Programme Division and Chief of Staff in New York, and Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa in Amman. Mrs Kaag then served as Assistant Secretary-General for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in New York. From October 2013 to September 2014 Mrs Kaag, as UN Under-Secretary-General, led the mission to eliminate chemical weapons in Syria. After this mission was completed, in 2015, she became Under-Secretary-General in Lebanon with responsibility for all UN activities in the country, specifically the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
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Liesbeth Staats

presents every Friday night Nooit meer slapen on Dutch national public radio broadcaster NPO Radio 1. In addition, she used to be one of the regular anchors of the national Dutch television news program Brandpunt+. She also made and presented the 4-part KRO-NCRV series De Baby-Industrie and the NTR program De Kennis van Nu. Before that she worked as a reporter and presenter at AVRO's television news magazine EenVandaag and for many years she was the anchor of the NOS Jeugdjournaal. Staats studied Dutch language and literature at the University of Amsterdam and literature at the Sorbonne in Paris.
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Susan Legêne

(1955) is a historian and professor of political history at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Legêne has published numerous lectures and articles, including on the interface between (colonial) history and museology. In 2010 her publication Spiegelreflex: culturele sporen van de koloniale ervaring (Mirror reflex: cultural traces of the colonial experience) appeared. From 1985, Legêne was attached to the Royal Tropical Institute, since 1997 as Head of Museum Affairs at the Tropenmuseum. In addition, Legêne is a member of the National UNESCO Commission and a member of the Ethical Code Committee for Museums. She is project leader of the Indonesian/Dutch research project Sites, Bodies & Stories (The Dynamics of Heritage Formation in Colonial & Postcolonial Indonesia & the Netherlands), on the relationship between heritage, image processes, citizenship and national identity. She also participates in the research project Agora/The semantics of History, on digital access to heritage collections and historical awareness.
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Frandjescka Balootje

performed in The Hague's Theater Dakota for the first time as story teller in 2016. Subsequently she has become a familiar face there and now is a host, spoken word artist and programme curator, most of all of educational activities.  Frandjescka manifests herself creatively as writer, host (a.o. Ook van jou Festival, GUAP Night, Escamp festival), photographer and actress.
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Lien Cornelissen

(Netherlands, 1983) grew up in the Achterhoek, studied law in Nijmegen and then went to work as a lawyer in The Hague. She also worked as a senior policy officer at the Ministry of Social Affairs and was seconded from there to the European Commission in Brussels. Her great passion is music. She sings, plays the piano and writes songs, with which she regularly performs.
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Tuncay Çinibulak

(Turkey, 1970) has been editor-in-chief since 2005 of the Dutch/Turkish business & cultural magazine TULPIA. Previously Çinibulak worked as a journalist for some time with several Dutch television companies and daily newspapers as well as writing columns for Metro and the Amsterdamse Stadsblad. Çinibulak is also a poet. His short stries and poems have been collected in Een hand uit de nacht (A Hand from the Night, 2002) and in Het land in mij. Nieuwe Verhalen van Jonge Schrijvers op de Grens van Twee Werelden (The Country Within. New Short Stories by Young Writers on the border of Two Worlds, 1996). He has also published his poems in literary magazines, Rood Koper, among others. Çinibulak has read a great deal from his own work, particularly during remembrance day 2002. Çinibulak has lived in the Netherlands since 1980.
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Dreaming Pays Off: the poetry of Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 20:00 tot 20:35 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2
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Pfeijffers' masterful use of language and inventive style - both daring and humorous - invite an interesting discussion about his poetic oevre. Of course he will also present his own work.

In 1998 he won the C. Buddingh Prize for his poetry collection Van de vierkante man (Of the Square Man). His collection Idyllen (Idylls) won the 2015 Jan Campert Prize and the Awater Poetry Prize.

Pfeijffer is also the editor of the anthology 500 gedichten die iedereen gelezen moet hebben (500 Poems Everyone Should Read, 2008, co-edited by Gert Jan de Vries), Er is alles in de wereld/Lucebert (There is Everything in the World/Lucebert, 2009) and De Nederlandse poezie van de twintigste en de eenentwintigste eeuw in duizend en enige gedichten (Dutch Poetry from the 20th and 21st Century in a Thousand and Some Poems, 2016).

Tip: Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer and his novel Grand Hotel Europa will be the focus of the "Europe on the Couch" event on Thursday, 15 January at Theater aan het Spui. Playing the role of Europa, Pfeijffer will be interrogated by psychiatrist Damiaan Denys. Meer details bekijken

Fifty Ways to Free Your Language

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 20:00 tot 21:05 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1
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How do writers relate to decolonizing language and literature, not only in their subject matter but also in the form of their poetry and stories?

During the Friday Night Unlimited program, several events will focus on the decolonization of the mind. How free is our mind, what does freedom mean, and are we truly free, or caught in the framework of our culture, society and history? This theme is partly based on the essay collection Decolonizing the Mind by the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o, in which he discusses colonized language and how its influence is still notable. Since he believes that language plays a constructive role in culture, history and identity, he argues for "linguistic decolonization".

This first program will be opened with a speech by writer Mukoma Wa Ngugi (USA, and son of Ngugi wa Thiong'o); then Simone Zeefuik discusses this subject with him and with poet Simone Atangana Bekone (Netherlands), poet and writer Antjie Krog (South Africa) and writer Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe).

Tip: Petina Gappah also appears at Opening Night - A Free Mind on Wednesday, 15 January, at Theater aan het Spui; Antjie Krog appears at Saturday Night Unlimited, 18 January, and during the Winternachten New Year's Concert on Sunday afternoon, 19 January, at the Zuiderstrand Theatre. Meer details bekijken

Film: Colony of Images

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 20:00 tot 21:00 uur
Location Filmhuis - zaal 1
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Films are made all over the world. They "speak" a universal language but are also culturally determined. In Colony of Images, Gerlinda Heywegen shows just how free film actually is and how it particularly wants to give us, the public, that impression. The film excerpts, both good and bad, such as colonization films shot in the Congo and contemporary arthouse fare (i.e. Claire Denis' Beau travail and White Material, both shot in Africa), colour this lecture, which perhaps asks more questions than it answers. Because the world, and certainly the world of film, is a colony of images. How important is it to decolonize film, to remove (offensive) stereotypes? When does a film exclude or oppress, and when is it inclusive? And is the latter even possible? Meer details bekijken

Book of My Life: Mylo Freeman

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 20:05 tot 20:01 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
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Writers tell us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Jet Steinz. Meer details bekijken

Spot on Young Poets

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 20:10 tot 21:05 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - foyer
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The literary future performs for you! Francis Broekhuijsen presents high-school students from Edith Stein College and de Vrije School Den Haag reciting their own poetry, the result of the Spot on Young Poets workshops and poetry lessons given at the schools by poet and guest teacher Diann van Faassen. Appearing with them is poet Obe Alkema, a nominee for the 2019 C. Buddingh Prize, and Mirle Wittekoek, a participant from last year and winner of the 2019 Young Campert Prize. DJ Socrates takes care of the sounds and beats. One or two finalists for the 2019 Young Campert Prize are chosen during the Spot on Young Poets events on Friday and Saturday. The finalists recite their poems once more on Sunday during the Schrijversfeest (Writers Fest). One of them is chosen by the public and receives the award for best Hague student poet. Meer details bekijken

Book of My Life: Asmaa Azaizeh

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 20:30 tot 20:50 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
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Writers tell us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Jet Steinz. Meer details bekijken

The Best Books You've Never Heard of

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 20:40 tot 21:01 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2
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What role do the doorkeepers of literature play - publishers, editors, booksellers, agents and scouts - when it comes to the colour filter? Who ultimately decides what is "good literature" and on what basis? We discuss the issue with Ellah Wakatama, Editor-at-Large of Scottish publishing firm Cannongate Books, Ebissé Rouw, editor at Dutch podcast platform Dipsaus Publicaties, and Mylo Freeman, writer and illustrator of children's books best known for her Princess Arabella picture-book series. Meer details bekijken

Book of My Life: Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 20:55 tot 21:15 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
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Writers tell us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Jet Steinz. Meer details bekijken

FILM: A Fool's Paradise

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 21:00 tot 22:15 uur
Location Filmhuis - zaal 2
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In the road move A Fool's Paradise, South African-Dutch director Saskia Vredeveld journeys through South Africa and asks if she would still feel at home in that country. She follows in the footsteps of Dutch colonists and travels into the unknown. Her 1800-kilometre route takes her through breathtaking landscapes from Capetown to Amsterdam, along the border with Mozambique. 

She visits places that sound familiar to her and us, but where she has never been before: Haarlem, Middelburg, Utrecht, Amersfoort, Rotteram. She witnesses poverty, unemployment, xenophobia, criminality and corruption. Vredeveld mainly remembers South Africa as a holiday destination. That she lived separate from "the others" felt normal to her at the time. No one in her circle questioned it. Did her youth under Apartheid turn her into a racist? Much changed for the better after the first democratic elections in 1994. But Vredeveld, like many others, struggles with shame. But she also feels hope and fears an uncertain future.

Watch the trailer.

Direction: Saskia Vredeveld
Documentary, Netherlands, 2019
Languages: Dutch, English, Afrikaans; Subtitled in Dutch Meer details bekijken

Friday Night Wintercafé

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 21:05 tot 23:45 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - foyer
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Here, at the beating heart of the Writers Unlimited festival, you encounter one another and the writers. Festival guide and presenter Francis Broekhuijsen leads you through the program. First, you discover young Hague poetry talents during the Spot on Young Poets event. Then Francis and DJ Socrates create a cozy atmosphere; you chat with a drink, meet authors and get them to sign your books. The De Vries Van Stockum Bookshop is open all evening in the foyer, offering a special selection of titles by all festival authors! These include new as well as older books, and, when available, both Dutch and English editions.

Meet & Greet - time schedule
Meet the writers for a conversation or booksigning!
21.10-21.30 Antjie Krog and Simone Atangana Bekono
22.05-22.30 Akwasi
23.00-23.20 Mylo Freeman and Sunny Bergman

After 23:45h in the foyer: Winternachten Club, featuring a festive and very danceable live performance by young Capeverdean band Tabanka from Rotterdam. Meer details bekijken

Art Deco - liberating the Arts

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 21:10 tot 22:00 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1
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How do musicians, (visual) artists and curators deal with decolonization? How does it influence, enrich or hinder their work?

During the Friday Night Unlimited program, several events will focus on the decolonization of the mind. How free is our mind, what does freedom mean, and are we truly free, or caught in the framework of our culture, society and history? This theme is party based on the essay collection Decolonizing the Mind by the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o, in which he discusses colonized language and how its influence is still notable. Since he believes that language plays a constructive role in culture, history and identity, he argues for "lingustic decolonization".

In this second event, Simon(e) van Saarloos discusses this subject with actor and writer Akwasi, with poet, visual artist and activist Quinsy Gario and with Susan Legène, Professor of Political History at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Meer details bekijken

Film: Writer Vamba Sherif on Imgages of Africa

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 21:20 tot 22:10 uur
Location Filmhuis - zaal 1
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In this film programme with moderator Gerlinda Heywegen writer Vamba Sherif talks about the work of Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène, who is seen as a key figure in post-colonial African cinema.
Sherif about Sembène: "His films were a way not only to decolonise the African spirit but also to point out and criticize the relationship between Africa and the West with a keen eye. The excerpts are from the documentary made by Kenyan literary and social activist Ngūgi wa Thiong'o, whose work plays a central role in this edition of Winternachten, about Sèmbene's life. Furthermore, clips from films such as Abouna (2002) by the Chadian filmmaker Mahamat-Saleh Haroun and Med Hondo's Soleil Ō will be shown.
This programme is followed by the screening of the film choice of Sherif, Heremakono by Abderrahmane Sissako. Meer details bekijken

Book of My Life: Mukoma Wa Ngugi

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 21:20 tot 21:40 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
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Writers tell us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Jet Steinz. Meer details bekijken

Books Unlimited: Petina Gappah & Asmaa Azaizeh

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 21:30 tot 22:10 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2
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Get to know international literary stars and their recent books. Journalist and De Gids editor Fiep van Bodegom talks to Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah about her latest novel, Out of Darkness, Shining Light, and Palestinian poet Asmaa Azaizeh about her new poetry collection, Do Not Believe Me When I Talk to You About War. 

“This is how we carried out of Africa the poor broken body of Bwana Daudi, the Doctor, David Livingstone, so that he could be borne across the sea and buried in his own land.” So begins Petina Gappah's powerful novel - the captivating story of the men and women who carried explorer and missionary David Livingstone's body, his papers and his maps 1500 miles across 19th-century Africa. The story is narrated by Halima, Livingstone's sharp-tongued cook, and Jacob Wainwright, a rigidly pious freed slave.

Asmaa Azaizeh is a Palestinian poet, journalist and cultural curator who currently lives and works in Haifa. Since 2011, she has published two poetry collections and a poetry anthology.

Tip: Petina Gappah will also appear at Opening Night - A Free Mind on Wednesday, 15 January at Theater aan het Spui; Azmaa Azaizeh also appears at the Free the Word - Oxfam Novib PEN Awards Night on Thursday, 16 January at Theater aan het Spui, and during the Writers Unlimited New Year's Concert on Sunday, 19 January at the Zuiderstrand Theatre. Meer details bekijken

Book of My Life: Barbaros Altug

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 21:45 tot 22:05 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
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Writers tell us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Jet Steinz. Meer details bekijken

Image-makers and image-breakers

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 22:05 tot 22:55 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1
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Decolonize the Mind 3: How does the process of decolonization unfold in the living room of the average television watcher, in the established historiography at universities, and in youth literature?

During the Friday Night Unlimited program, several events will focus on the decolonization of the mind. How free is our mind, what does freedom mean, and are we truly free, or caught in the framework of our culture, society and history? This theme is partly based on the essay collection Decolonizing the Mind by the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o, in which he discusses colonized language and how its influence is still notable. Since he believes that language plays a constructive role in culture, history and identity, he arguest for "linguistic decolonization".

A discussion between documentarian, writer and journalist Sunny Bergman, historian and lecturer at Leiden University Karwan Fatah-Black, and children's book writer and illustrator Mylo Freeman, best known for his Princess Arabella picture book series. Meer details bekijken

Book of My Life: Cagla Meknuze

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 22:10 tot 22:30 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
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Writers tell us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Jet Steinz. Meer details bekijken

Linguistic Colonization: Then and Now

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 22:15 tot 22:55 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2
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To what extent has African literature been able to wrest itself free of linguistic colonization? And what about other languages? Can the predominance of English still be stopped, or is it a lost cause? Liberian-Dutch writer and poet Vamba Sherif discusses the issue with American-Kenyan writer, poet, university lecturer in English and activist Mukoma Wa Ngũgĩ and with Ellah Wakatama, Editor-at-Large of Scottish publishing firm Cannongate Books. She is also a senior Research Fellow at Manchester University and Chair of the Caine Prize for African Writing. 

Tip: Mukoma Wa Ngũgĩ also appears at the Storytelling Symposium "Decolonising the Mind: What Happened to You?" on Thursday, 16 January, at the International Institute of Social Studies. Meer details bekijken

Film: Stones Have Laws (Dee Sitonu a Weti)

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 22:30 tot 00:10 uur
Location Filmhuis - zaal 2
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Majestic images of the forest and the sometimes serene, sometimes raging river set the tone, while the local Surinamese Marroons that live there, descendants of enslaved Africans that managed to escape, illuminate their world. They show how they live there and how consulations with ancestors and forest spirits coexist with the use of modern tools.

The film combines oral lore about African ancestral traditions and escape from slavery with new rituals, and shows how the industry that is razing the forest for large-scale logging and mining is endangering the community's strong ties to the land. Dutch artists Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan, together with the Surinamese playwright Tolin Erwin Alexander, strongly involved the Marroon community in the development of the project, which emerged from an experimental process of collective scriptwriting and performance. The result is a unique cinematic form that mixes ancestral traditions with new forms of filmmaking, which meshes documentary, poetry and theatre.

"A unique portait"**** De Volkskrant
"A story that we really should know"**** NRC

Watch the trailer.
A short documentary by STVS (Surinam) with public reaction after the premiere at TBL Cinemas, Paramaribo.

Direction: Lonnie van Brummelen, Siebren de Haan. Co-direction: Tolin Erwin Alexander.
Documentary, Netherlands/Surinam, 2018.
Languages: Saamaka, Okanisi, Dutch; with Dutch subtitles.

Prior to Heremakono, the short film My name is Queen by The Hague filmmaker Chesney Giersthove will be screened. The short film tells the story of a young woman who shows that what most people experience as freedom is not necessarily the definition of freedom. And about what it means to feel a slave inside of external factors such as wanting to be popular, wanting to belong and dissatisfaction.

Directed by: Chesney Giersthove
Netherlands 2019, 8 minutes Meer details bekijken

Film: Heremakono

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 22:30 tot 00:00 uur
Location Filmhuis - zaal 1
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A screening of the film selected by writer Vamba Sherif. Heremakone takes place in Nouadhibou, Mauritania, a transit community for people travelling from Africa to Europe. The city adds up to one big "wait for good fortune" (Heremakono). Director Abderrahmane Sissako shows that it is mosty waiting, and little good fortune - an in-between place where people pretend to live a life. Abdallah also wants to leave, a student on the way to a Europe that only exists in people's minds. But first he stops to visit his mother. He no longer seems to belong in Nouadhibou, and doesn't even speek the language, but gradually something changes.
Director Abderrahmane Sissako won the Critics' Prize at Cannes for "the transcendenly poetic presentation of emotional and humorous complications that can arise in a simple life".

Direction: Abderrahmane Sissako
Feature film, Mauritania/France, 2002 Meer details bekijken

Free at Last: A Day of Decolonised Life

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 23:00 tot 23:40 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1
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Exciting! Are these fairy tales or is this finally a decolonised world? Writers Unlimited asked a very international group of eight authors to sum up a day of colonisation-free existence in poetry or prose. Eight days of liberation, each in their own way.

In this event you will see and hear Akwasi, the Dutch rapper, actor and writer of Ghanaian background; Barbaros Altuğ, the Turkish writer, journalist and literary agent; Asmaa Azaizeh, Palestinian poet, journalist and cultural curator born in Lower Galilee in Israel's north; Petina Gappah, lawyer and writer from Zimbabwe; Cağla Meknuze, jounalist and poet from Turkey; Jolyn Phillips, writer, poet and composer from South Africa; Simon(e) van Saarloos, American-Dutch writer and philosopher; and Vamba Sherif, Liberian-Dutch writer and journalist.

The authors present their work in their preferred writing language or mother tongue; Dutch and English translations are projected simultaneously. Meer details bekijken

Winternachten Club featuring Tabanka

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Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 23:45 tot 01:00 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - foyer
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Tabanka, a young Cape Verdean group from Rotterdam, brings a fresh and contemporary take on funaná: the upbeat, energetic and festive music and dance style once forbidden by the Portuguese colonial rulers, which became part of post-independence Cape Verdean identity in the eighties. Tabanka knows how to put on an exuberant live show that makes it impossible to stand still. Meer details bekijken

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