(Amsterdam, NL, 1963) studied Dutch language and literature in Amsterdam. He writes reviews, interviews, columns and obituaries, and heads the books section of De Volkskrant newspaper. In 2011 he published Eindelijk Sneeuw (Snow at Last: twelve wintry stories about artists, writers, and books, from Willem Witsen's cityscapes to the tears of Mrs. Dickens). Exerpts from his reviews and interviews were published in the books Langzaam lopen is al verdacht (Walking Slowly is Suspicious, 1999), De ongeneeslijke lezer – een werkboek (The Incurable Reader: a workbook, 2002), Het woord is aan de schrijver (The Writer Has the Floor, 2005), and De Broodschrijver (The Hack, 2006), about Bart Chabot's biography of Herman Brood. In 2012 he published Kreten uit een urn (Cries from an Urn), a lecture on the role of the critic in our time. His text "Naar boven mit Brakman" ("Up With Brakman") accompanied the 2015 unveiling of the Brakman monument in Enschede.

(Belgium, 1955) writes widely on wide-ranging topics, from poetry about her late husband Herman de Coninck in Taal zonder mij (Language without Me, 1998) to the struggle of an anorexia patient in her book Ann (2008). The human condition is always central to her extensive oeuvre. Her work also pays a noticeable amount of attention to the female sexual experience. In her novel De waar gebeurde geschiedenis van Victor en Clara Rooze (The True History of Victor and Clara Rooze), Hemmerechts plays with fact and fiction: a writer with writer's block tackles a story of incest to give free reign to her thoughts about writing and literature. Haar Bloed (Her Blood) appeared in 2012, for which she spent time in a hematology ward. In 2014 she caused an uproar with De vrouw die de honden eten gaf (The Woman Who Fed the Dogs), a novel inspired by the Dutroux case. Her latest novel Alles verandert (Everything Changes) closely follows the plot of J.M. Coetzee's In Ongenade (Disgrace), but with a female protagonist. How much does the gender of literary characters determine our view of their actions?