(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.

(Hengelo, NL 1962) is a radio journalist and a writer. His most recently published book is De Wadden (The Frisian islands; 2013), a poetic history of the Frisian islands. His book of short stories Brutus heeft honger (Brutus is hungry, 2011) was nominated for the AKO Literature Prize. Eating being the leitmotiv, Deen jumps through world history. The forty-four historical stories are fine miniatures of scarcely one and a half page long. After having studied Dutch in Groningen Deen worked for Radio Noord for some years. His radio columns from those days were collected in two publications. Since 2001 Deen has been programme maker with VPRO radio, hosting the historical radio programme OVT. A number of historical documentaries which he made for VPRO radio has been published as an audiobook. The radio series De lange weg naar Darwin (Long road to Darwin) appeared on cd and as a podcast. Deen was programme coordinator of the Winternachten Festival between 2009 and 2011.

A trio with Peer de Graaf (vocals), Henk Koekkoek (ukelele, saxophone) and Piet Maas (contrabas). Peer de Graaf began as early as 1978 as ‘Meneertje Peertje’ in the theatre. Meneertje Peertje is still active but in the meantime Peer de Graaf has grown into a mature actor, cabaret artist, musician, presenter and improvisor. De Graaf not only performs in the theatre, but is also active in education and health care. With Thijs Borsten he makes up the duo Trapperdetrap, which specializes in adult songs for children. On every cd a special guest can be heard, such as Mathilde Santing, Wende Snijders and Denis Jannah. The duo aims at making fine music which is also popular with non-parents. De Graaf is an allround performer who sings, makes jokes and tells stories with the greatest ease. He has been doing that for years in various acts and small bands; in theatres, during De Parade but also at block parties. Last year the same trio, by the name of Trio Lang en Gelukkig (Happily Everafter), was a great success at the festival.

(Leeuwarden, 1962) in 2010 published Bernhard, a reconstruction of the hitherto unknown German background of Prince Bernhard. With this book she obtained her doctorate in history at the University of Amsterdam. The four books which Van der Zijl published have been best-sellers and three of them were adapted for the screen. In 1998 she made her debut with Jagtlust, about a villa in Het Gooi, the meeting-place of artists and poets. Four years later it was followed by Anna, her much-praised biography of Annie M.G. Schmidt. In 2004 Sonny Boy appeared, about the love affair of a Surinamese student and a married Dutch woman, against the backdrop of WWII. The film attracted an audience of 400,000 and was selected the Dutch entry for the Oscars. Van der Zijl grew up in Friesland, studied art history and mass communication in Amsterdam and journalism in London. She worked for HP/De Tijd before deciding in 1999 to become a fulltime writer. Right now Van der Zijl is working on a story set in the US between 1875 and 1950.

(Gombong, Java, 1934) has played in numerous plays, films, tv series and musicals. The public at large knows him from the Sonneveld show, De stille kracht, Oebele, Foxtrot and Miss Saigon. The theatre lover knows him because of his great, more serious roles, such as in Amadeus, De verbroken code, Shakespeare's The Tempest and Children of a Lesser God. In 2011 he was appointed a Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion, a distinction given to people with exceptional achievements for society on the basis of very special talents. In his career of fifty years Willem Nijholt has always regarded language as the basis of acting. In addition to being an avid reader he is first and foremost a passionate writer. That great love of language can be read in Met bonzend hart. Brieven aan Hella Haasse (With a throbbing heart, Letters to Hella Haasse).

(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.

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

Go to the website of Margot Dijkgraaf
Instagram: @margotdijkgraaf