The novel You say, in which Connie Palmen gives a voice to Ted Hughes, won the Libris Literature Prize yesterday. Of course, you can think all sorts of things about that. Maybe another book was better. Tastes and juries differ.
In the novel based on facts and diaries, letters and biographies, Palmen gives poet Ted Hughes a rebuttal. A rebuttal to all the accusations that his cheating drove the poet Sylvia Plath to suicide. The result is a novel that invites you to read the poems of both, Hughes' letters and Plath's diaries.
Then a diffuse picture emerges - exactly what Palmen was trying to evoke. And of course, she is well aware that by telling the story from the male perspective, she is putting an unwelcome spin on it. After all, countless are the hagiographies of Plath in which Hughes pure evil is.
However, the spin by Twan Huys, best known as the man who wants to become the 'intellectual' ratings variant of Ivo Niehe through his College Tour, is downright bizarre. Obviously, he has not read Palmen's book. Let alone anything by Hughes or Plath.
He did ask Palmen whether it is remarkable that so few women win literary prizes, and whether the jury was "merciful" that she could now win the prize.
Palmen remained admirably calm on Huys' question with the underlying idea: you won because you are a woman. No, even worse: you won because you are a woman and we as men thought we should be merciful for once and then we ended up with you.
Again: admiration for the way Palmen answered Huys neatly.
So we say: Twan Huys wins the award for the most sexist comment of 2016.
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