Book of My Life with Marja Pruis

About Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.

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Information

Date and time Saturday 20 January 2024 21:30 tot 21:50 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
Price Early bird price until 26 December €25
Regular €30
All up to 30 years / Ooievaarspas €15
DenHaagPas €27,50

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: Hassnae Bouazza.

Marja Pruis chose as her favourite Mrs. Dalloway (1925) by Virginia Woolf, the novel in which Clarissa Dalloway goes to buy flowers one summer morning. She is making final preparations for the party she is going to give that evening. As she walks through London, she reflects on her life.

Marja Pruis

(The Netherlands, 1959) has been writing about the expectations men and women have of each other and of life since her debut novel Bloem (Flower). Her novel Atoomgeheimen (Nuclear Secrets is about intimacy and the loss of ideals. She has been called the chronicler of contemporary womanhood; she explores her themes further in her novels De vertrouweling (The Confidant) and Zachte riten (Soft Rites). Pruis works at De Groene Amsterdammer weekly as a literary editor and columnist, writing essays on topics as diverse as humour, shyness and greed. She received the Jan Hanlo Prize for her collection of essays Kus me, straf me, and the J. Greshoff Prize for essayism with Genoeg nu over mij. For her columns, collected in Oplossingen (Solutions), she received the J. Heldring Prize. In Boos Meisje. Over vrouwen en frictie (Angry Girl. About Women and Friction), she writes about the split in which girls and women find themselves, including portraits of writers she admires such as Renate Rubinstein and Vivian Gornick. Her recently published confrontational novel Huiswerk (Homework) is about white privilege and the tension between employer and employee.
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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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