(1913-2000) Lawyer. He moved from his native country Surinam to The Netherlands, in order to study law in Leiden and later Paris. During the war he lived in England, later in Indonesia during the budding struggle for independence, and in Japan, where he worked in the process of sentencing war criminals. He became active as a judge later in his life. In the postwar Surinam years, he wrote poems and several plays in Soula under the pseudonym Ernesto Albin. He started writing prose later in his life, but he did publish several rare editions of collections of quatrains (later collected in Een uitroep zonder uitroeptaken (Exclamation without an exclamation mark, 1987). He published several collections of stories, poems and essays. (Het doosje van Toeti (Toeti’s Box, 1985), De ziekte van Anna Printemps (Anna Printemps’ Disease, 1987), Reizen en stilstaan (Traveling and standing still, 1988).

(Leyden, 1949) is one of the most prominent figures in Dutch literary non-fiction. He has also gained international recognition with works such as Baltische zielen (Baltic Souls) en De rechtvaardigen (The Righteous). His writings have been translated into 23 languages, among which English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Chinese and Russian. His two most recent books are set in former Dutch East Indies, where both of his parents lived and were held captive in Japanese internment camps during the war: De tuinen van Buitenzorg (The Gardens of Buitenzorg, 2021) and De Kampschilders (The Camp Painters, 2022). In September 2023, Brokken was honored with the Golden Quill Award for his entire body of work. Brokken studied journalism in Utrecht and political science in Bordeaux. After a career in journalism (including roles at Trouw and HP/De Tijd), Brokken decided to dedicate himself fully to his writing in 1986. His debut, the adapted novel De provincie (The province, 1984), had already been published by that time. He has since produced over thirty-five titles - a mix of fiction and non-fiction - in which he unveils the histories of countries he has visited, from Africa and the Caribbean to Indonesia.

(Aruba, 1945). Henriquez studied in Delft, The Netherlands, and now works as a physics teacher in Rotterdam. He wrote several plays and a film scenario. His debut was the novel Zuidstraat (South Street, 1992). In 1995, Delft blues saw the light of day, an often comical sketch of student life in the 1960s.
(WN 1998)

(Oirschot, 1957) from 1983 to 1987 he worked in Surinam. Van Kempen is the compiler of two extensive anthologies: Spiegel van de Surinaamse poëzie (Mirror of the Surinamese Poetry) (1995) and Mama Sranan. 200 jaar Surinaamse verhaalkunst (Mama Sranan, 200 Years of Surinamese Storytelling) (1999). In 1997 his first novel, Plantage Lankmoedigheid (Plantation Patience) appeared. He also published: Het Nirwana is een lege trein (Nirvana is an Empty Train) (2000) and Pakistaanse nacht (Pakistani Night) (2002). In 2002 he obtained his doctorate with his thesis Een geschiedenis van de Surinaamse literatuur (A history of Surinamese literature). His anthology Noordoostpassanten (Northeast Transients), which he compiled together with Wim Rutgers, was presented at the Winternachten festival in 2005. In 2006 he published the novel Escape Routes.