Help, It's My Debut! Literary Brunch with CLEEFT

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An informal literary brunch in the cozy foyer of Theatre aan het Spui, at the heart of the festival. This event is a collaboration with CLEEFT, a community of fans of film, books, exhibitions, concerts, performances, and culinary events.

What happens to you when your first book is published? When suddenly it's in the shops, your name is in the paper and on TV, and radio and talk shows clamour to have you on as a guest? It's a great achievement, of course, but making your debut can also be difficult. Maybe there are reviews critical of your "baby." Or, worse, no one takes any notice of your book at all. This program features writers who are popular with CLEEFT's readers. Bregje Hofstede made her debut in 2014 with De hemel boven Parijs (The Sky Over Paris). Right after the event, Lize Spit will attend the launch of her first book, Het Smelt (It's Melting). Long-time publisher Peter Nijssen of De Arbeiderspers talks about how it used to be for rookies versus how it is today. He lays out the dos and don'ts for emerging writers. In the field of music, too, you can get swept up in a wave of publicity, as happened to Gerson Main, singer with the famous fur hat, who made the finals of the show Best Singer-songwriter of the Netherlands. This event is hosted by CLEEFT critic Ferdinand Lankamp and writer Abdelkader Benali, who had a dream debut in 1996 with Bruiloft aan zee (Wedding by the Sea).

Information

Date and time Saturday 16 January 2016 from 11:00 to 12:45 hrs
Location Theater aan het Spui - foyer

Line-up

Gerson Main

(Suriname, 1987) is a versatile theatre maker, musician, writer and poet who has made the Dutch language his instrument. Since reaching the final of De beste singer-songwriter van Nederland in 2015, he has enchanted many audiences with his narrative songs. He has collaborated on theatre productions such as Daar Ergens with Akwasi, which played at Oerol and in sold-out venues, and his own show Ga weg, maar blijf, which was performed at De Parade. Gerson has also written music for artists such as Dio and Stef Bos. He recently released his second album, Weg van dit feestje, which is also the title of his new theatre performance he plays starting 17 January 2026. He is the author of the children's book Alle dingen die mijn opa stiekem is, illustrated by Hedy Tjin.

Go to the website of Gerson Main
Gerson Main on Spotify
Instagram: @gersonmain
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Peter Nijssen

Helden, NL, 1961) studied Dutch language and literature in Utrecht. Until the mid-nineties, he was a writer and literary jouralist for the weeklies Vrij Nederland and HP/De Tijd. In 1995 he became an editor with De Arbeiderspers, a literary publisher of fiction and non-fiction, prose and poetry, and Dutch and translated literature. In 1999 he became the editor-in-chief, and in 2013 the publisher. The company's writers include Anna Enquist, Maarten ‘t Hart, Arthur Japin, and Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, and young authors like Ineke Riem and Christophe Vekeman. The company's foreign authors include Michel Houellebecq, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Cormac McCarthy and Tim Parks, as well as the world's most translated writer, Paulo Coelho. De Arbeiderspers is also home to the literary series Privé-domein. Nijssen has also written and translated literary fiction and non-fiction, and published several books.


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Abdelkader Benali

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

(Ede, NL, 1988) make her debut in 2014 with De Hemel boven Parijs (The Sky Over Paris). In this novel, an elderly professor of art history at the Sorbonne falls under the spell of a Dutch exchange student, who is the spitting image of his first love. Her presence points out the lies in his life. The central question is how to live with the ever-present possibility of failure, such as in love. Never start so as never to fail, or aim for the top at the risk of being destroyed? The translation rights for the novel have already been sold in Germany and Denmark. Hofstede lives in Brussels and studied art history and French in Utrecht, Paris, and Berlin. She received the 2012/2013 Hollands Maandblad magazine's "encouragement" scholarship for her short stories and essays. Hofstede works at a European heritage organization and is an editor at a speech and text agency. She is co-author of De Verbeelders (The Illustrators), a book about more than 100 years of book illustration in the Netherlands.
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Lize Spit

(Belgium, 1988) grew up in the Antwerp Kempen region, but has lived in Brussels since 2005. In 2016, she made her successful debut as a novelist with The Melting (2021), a story about a girl named Eva who grows up with two boys from her small Flemish village. Everything changes when the boys reach puberty and present Eva with an impossible choice. The book was translated into fifteen languages and won several awards. In 2020, her second novel Ik ben er niet (I am not there) was published, a story about devotion and betrayal, about two people who are flawed in their own way, but who do their utmost to be noticed, to love and to live. Lize also publishes prose and poetry in various literary magazines and is a columnist for Flemish daily newspaper De Morgen. Her critically acclaimed book Autobiografie van mijn lichaam (Autobiography of My Body, 2024) is a poignant, confrontational, but also loving exploration by a daughter who tries to understand not only her mother, but also her own troubled relationship with her body.

Go to the website of Lize Spit
Instagram: @lizespit
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Ferdinand Lankamp

(Alphen aan de Rijn, 1989) grew up in Leiden and Voorschoten. After several long and notably chaotic student years he is now close to graduating at Leiden University as a historian, focusing on the decolonisation of Indonesia. He works as an editor for digital cultural magazine De Optimist alongside his position as a book reviewer and reporter for the cultural blog CLEEFT. He is no stranger to writing prose himself: in December 2015 he won the Christmas Story Contest of the Leiden University magazine Mare. After his graduation he will start a teacher training at the University of Amsterdam.
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