1970) made his debut with De voeten van Abdullah. He writes novellas, short stories and drama. He also composes classical music, and uses the music to improve his writing technique. 'Memories are fleeting. I have the need to grab them, record them. Islam is my stories always present in bizarre forms: the weird imam, the absurd laws. In reality Islam is clear enough to govern the whole life.' (Weekend Knack, 06.19.1996). Recent work: Momo (1998), Apollien (1998, drama), Schoon in elk oog is wat het bemint, de mooiste klassieke Arabische liefdesgedichten (Beauty is in each loving eye, de best Arabic love poems).).
From: Schrijversnet, 2001

(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.

(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).

(1934) debuted in 1964 with Zeepost (Sea mail). The collection quickly found its way to a large readership – which Herzberg’s poetry continued to do. Herzberg is also a playwright; she wrote Leedvermaak (± Malicious delight), and collaborated with Franz Weisz in de making of Charlotte, the successful film about painter Charlotte Salomon. Her work was awarded many prizes; in 1997 she was awarded the P.C. Hooft Prize for her poetry. In an interview she commented: ‘I still don’t have the feeling I am a poet. I am who I am, and occasionally I write a poem’. After Zeepost she published several more collections, among which Dagrest (The Remains of the Day) and Bijvangst (Additional catch).