(The Hague, NL 1952) is a jack-of-all-trades. Apart from writing prose and poetry for children and adults, she illustrates and performs. In 2008 and 2009 she was city poet of Antwerp, Belgium. Her illustrated novel Alles Nieuw (Everything New) made it to the shortlist of the 2009 Ako Literature Prize. Van Leeuwen's children's books have been awarded many times with the Zilveren Griffel (Silver Pencil), Gouden Uil (Golden Owl) and the Woutertje Pieterse Prize. Especially her children's book Deesje was translated in many languages and awarded abroad. The power in her work is that she enriches her texts with beautiful illustrations. Van Leeuwen's main characters often walk through life with a gaze of wonderment while at the same time they seem locked by everyday routine. Van Leeuwen’s career began in 1978 when she won the Camaretten (cabaret) festival and published her first children's book. Since then she hes been performing in smaller and bigger productions, combining cabaret, literature and image.

(Scheveningen, 1951) is a poet and translator. He studied Russian, Italian and Romanian, although he never completed these studies. Instead Rawie decided to make his hobby his profession and become a poet. He made his debut in 1976 and since then has had a great number of succesful poetry collections published. In 1989 he received for his oevre the Wessel Gansfort award of the province of Groningen. His most recent poetry collection is Wij volgen één voor één hetzelfde pad: de mooiste rouwgedichten (One by one we follow the same road: the best poems for mourning) (2003). Rawie is known for the fixed form of his poetry, and thus is very easy to read. Rawie himself says: ‘Easy reading is hard writing’. Rawie lives and works in Groningen.
WIN2005

(Amsterdam, 1945) studied piano and psychology. Up until the year 2000 she worked as a psychoanalyst. In 1991 she made her debut with her collection of poems Soldatenliederen (Soldier’s Songs) for which she was awarded the C. Buddingh’ Prize. Her second collection, Jachtscènes (Hunting Scenes) appeared in 1992 and it earned her the Lucy B. en C.W. van der Hoogt award. Her first novel Het meesterstuk (The Masterpiece) (1994) sold 70.000 copies within two years. This novel was awarded the Debutant prize. Her second novel Het geheim (The secret) was published in January 1997 and it won the Trouw Publieksprijs (Trouw public award). In the spring of 1999 Enquists first collection of stories De kwetsuur (The injury) appeared. Her most recent publications are the novel De Sprong (The jump) (2003) and the collection of poems Tussentijd (Between time) (2004). Anna Enquist regularly publishes poems and short stories in the literary football magazine Hard Gras.
WN2005

(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.