Everything to do with letters
Writer and theatre-maker Nhung Dam (38) tried to be as Dutch as possible, but is increasingly embracing her Vietnamese roots. Because these are precisely what make her unique, she now realises, and offer a wealth of stories. Including for her second novel, Definition of Love. Two worlds Nhung Dam (38) more or less grew up in two worlds. Her cradle was in...
The winners of the Thérèse Cornips Stipendium 2023 have been announced. They will each receive a sum of money to further realise their plans in the literary field. The available budget of €12,500 will be divided among five projects. Applications awarded Drama translator Mike Sens will receive €1,750 to complete his translation of Visions nocturnes, a play by the French-language Belgian writer...
This year's Charlotte Köhler Prize, a triennial award for writers of prose, poetry or drama, has been awarded to Peer Wittenbols (1965). Wittenbols receives the €15,000 prize for his entire oeuvre and in particular for the youth-oriented play Trojan Wars (2020). The jury consisted of theatre scholar Sruti Bala, actor, writer and director Gable Roelofsen and...
In his new novel, Italian bestselling author Niccolò Ammaniti (56) wittily holds up a mirror to modern man. His protagonist, the wife of the Italian prime minister, is afraid of being blackmailed with a sex video. "I don't know if I would have the same courage as her in such a situation," he says. Storytelling fun With novels like I Pick You Up, I Take You and I...
The Zilveren Krulstaarten were awarded on Saturday afternoon 25 March in Amsterdam to the writers of the best film and television scripts of 2022. Once started as a giants' prize due to the lack of a Golden Calf for screenplay, the Zilveren Krulstaarten have now become the Dutch professional awards for screenwriters. The winners are chosen annually by members of the Authors' Association's Screenwriters Network....
With his previous novel Homeland, Spanish author Fernando Aramburu captured the hearts of readers across Europe. The bestseller about the consequences of violence by the Basque separatist movement ETA, won three awards and HBO adapted the book into a television series. His new one, Counting the Days, is a more intimate story, about a man who decides on a...
Gijs Wilbrink is the new editor-in-chief of ILFU's online platform, which publishes urgent literary fiction in line with current events. With 1,200 members and contributions from authors such as Manon Uphoff, ILFU aims to provide a counter voice to the growing group that has difficulty with fiction. New members can sign up at ilfu.com. The next ILFU Festival will be from 22 September to 7 October.
Diversity is a fact, inclusion an act. Simple statement, if you come upon it, and Jenny Mijnhijmer, actress and writer, came upon it. She was asked during the pandemic to chair a committee for the Authors' Union to figure out how that advocacy group for writers could become more inclusive and diverse. She didn't really feel like doing that at all. After all, we already talk...
In Joy, the sequel to Manuel Vila's bestseller Ordesa, the protagonist is searching for himself and for little sparks of joy. In his rather barren and difficult existence, this is not yet easy. It must have been a double feeling. With his personal novel Ordesa (published in 2018, a story about the death of his parents and the existential emptiness...
Margaret Atwood, the success author of The Handmaid's Tale, among others, is coming to Utrecht on the last day of book week, Sunday 19 March 2023, for an exclusive performance at ILFU in TivoliVredenburg's pop venue Ronda. There, she will present her new book Old Babes in the Wood in a conversation with Janine Abbring. Ticket sales start Friday 10 February, 10:00...
Dear members, dear colleagues, The Authors' Union is standing behind our endangered colleague Pim Lammers and signing a broad statement of support from the book trade. You can also join this individually. The sign-up address info@algemene-uitgevers.nl is open until Thursday 9 February, 10am. This is what it's about Full of horror, we followed the news surrounding our colleague Pim Lammers. Pim received death threats following a...
Together with the CPNB and the ILFU, the translation magazine Filter will introduce a brand new prize in 2023: the Filter Translation Prize for children's and youth books. With this, all parties underline the great importance of good translations and good children's book translators. The prize money is the same as for the existing Filter Translation Prize: 10,000 euros. The nominations will be announced in June 2023. The...
'Dutch-language music has been unabatedly popular for years in a variety of genres; from pop to hip-hop, competing with English-language music. That's where you see what you can achieve with attention. The same can happen with books.' This quote by author Gustaaf Peek, recorded in a press release from the Authors' Union, is quite inspiring. The press release, in which the advocate of 1,750 Dutch writers...
Stop the declining sales of Dutch-language books, ensure more attention to literature. That is the only way to reverse the trend of the CPNB figures presented on Thursday, thinks the Authors' Union, the interest group for writers and translators with 1,750 members. By 2022, 10% less Dutch-language fiction has been sold. One in five books will now be published in a language other than...
With The river is a wound full of fish, Colombian Lorena Salazar Masso makes a powerful literary debut. What does it mean to be a mother, when do you actually BE a mother? Can you be a mother even if you did not give birth to your child yourself? As a mother without a child, are you still a mother? That is the theme of the...
With the new year, the new Filter Translation Prize jury has also started work. Thanks to the GAU (Group of General Publishers) and in cooperation with the ILFU (International Literature Festival Utrecht), the Filter Translation Prize 2023 will be awarded during the ILFU festival (22 Sept - 7 Oct 2023). A surprising number of interesting translations appeared in 2022. The nominations...
A story about love, but above all an ode to imagination. Perfect Days by Spanish writer Jacobo Bergareche is a passionate novel. Deadly marriage With the excuse that it is necessary for his work, Spanish journalist Luis visits a conference in Austin, Texas. But actually, the trip is mostly an excuse for his dead-blooded marriage to Paula...
What do you hold on to when not only the world is tottering, but also your own life? Where then can you find a safe place, a future? That is what Tasmania, Paolo Giordano's new book, is about. Crisis What came first: the worries about climate change and other world crises, or the crisis in his own life? The first-person narrator in Tasmania, a...
Since Roberto Saviano published his book Gomorrah and incurred the hatred of the Italian mafia, he has been living in hiding. What that is like, the graphic novel I'm still alive shows and feels razor-sharp. Roberto Saviano is 12 when he witnesses at first hand the murder of a man in his neighbourhood by the mafia. Fifteen years later,...
Her debut novel The Sound of the Night, in which simple seamstress Sira Quiroga became a spy for the British secret service, became a global bestseller a decade ago. Now Spanish writer María Dueñas (58) is out with a new novel in which she takes Sira to task. 'She did have to suffer a little.' Second part Because of the somewhat...
Millions of extra euros will go to public libraries in the coming years. State Secretary Uslu (Culture and Media) wants to use that money to ensure that every municipality has a future-oriented library facility. Specifically, that means filling gaps in the physical library network and expanding the online library. Linked to this, Uslu also wants to establish a duty of care for municipalities,...
Patronisation! Woke terror! These were some of the reactions from the film world when there were calls for the appointment of an intimacy coordinator at Dutch film productions. As if anyone could allow or display sexually transgressive behaviour in a studio with 40 other staff around it. Impossible! Yesterday, the book Wat de Fak! by award-winning actress Maryam Hassouni was published and in it, it states...
They are quite the characters, the main characters in the books of Jeroen Olyslaegers (55). Laughingly, he talks about Wilfried Wils, the protagonist of his 2016 bestseller Wil, who never stopped talking to his creator. 'He kept commenting. I hadn't experienced a book staying alive like that before. When the book was awarded...
Make it beautiful is the title of his new novel, but actually it was a book Thomas Verbogt (69) had been carrying around inside for many years. Now that it has finally been written, he feels lighter. Good person How can you be of essential importance to another person? And what do you have to do to be a good person?....
Paradais - 'paradise' - is the cynical title of Fernanda Melchor's new, disconcerting novel. The world the Mexican writer conjures up is more like hell. Polo, a dark-skinned 16-year-old boy living with his mother in a small Mexican village, has rather fucked up his life so far. He has been kicked out of school, smokes and...
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