The Gouden Griffel is an award given to authors of children's or teenagers' literature in the Netherlands.
Hubertina Petronella Maria "Bettine" Vriesekoop is a former table tennis player from the Netherlands. She was European champion in 1982 and 1992 individually and in 1982 in mixed doubles. She competed at the 1988, 1992 and 1996 Olympics in singles and women doubles with the best achievement of sevenths place in both events in 1988.
Stefan Hertmans is a Flemish Belgian writer. He was head of a study centre at University College Ghent and affiliated researcher of the Ghent University. He won the Ferdinand Bordewijk Prijs in 2002 for the novel Als op de eerste dag.
Willem Maurits Roggeman is a Belgian poet, novelist and art critic.
Gerrit Jan Komrij was a Dutch poet, novelist, translator, critic, polemic journalist and playwright. He rose to prominence in the early 1970s, writing poetry that sharply contrasted with the free-form poetry of his contemporaries. He acquired a reputation for his prose in the late 1970s, writing acerbic essays and columns often critical of writers, television programs, and politicians. As a literary critic and especially as an anthologist he had a formative influence on Dutch literature: his 1979 anthology of Dutch poetry of the 19th and 20th centuries, reformed the canon, and was followed by anthologies of Dutch poetry of the 17th and 18th centuries, of Afrikaans poetry, and of children's poetry. Those anthologies and a steady stream of prose and poetry publications solidified his reputation as one of the country's leading writers and critics; he was awarded the highest literary awards including the P. C. Hooft Award (1993), and from 2000 to 2004, he was the Dutch Dichter des Vaderlands. Komrij died in 2012 at age 68.
Johannes Pieter "Jan" Kal is a Dutch poet. He lives in Amsterdam. Along with others, such as Gerrit Komrij, Jan Kuijper, and Jean Pierre Rawie, he helped revive the sonnet in Dutch poetry, and substantially all of Kal's work is in sonnet form. His earliest published work is dated 1966, and his first volume of sonnets, Fietsen op de Mont Ventoux was published in 1974. His range of styles and subjects is wide, including love poetry, religious poems, and occasional poetry. His poetry tends to humorous irony as well as, at times, melancholy. To English-speaking readers who understand a little Dutch, perhaps his most accessible poems are his many sonnet versions of American popular songs, including those of Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, and his favourite, Frank Sinatra.
De Bezige Bij is one of the most important literary publishing companies in the Netherlands.
Komrij's Patentwekker is a book of humorous poetry by Dutch author Gerrit Komrij, first published in 1974. The book contains four poems which outline a fictional invention—an alarm clock that consists of a burning candle inserted in the sleeper's anus, containing markings for each hour to be spent sleeping. The deeper the candle is inserted, the earlier the sleeper rises; the inventor acquires a patent on his idea. The four poems are formalist, like the rest of Komrij's poetry. They have three quatrains each, rhyming a b a b in pentametric lines.
Willem Philippe Maria "Wim" Zaal was a Dutch journalist, essayist, translator and literary critic. He was literary editor of Elsevier for years.
Adriaan Roland Holst was a Dutch writer, nicknamed the "Prince of Dutch Poets". He was the second winner, in 1948, of the Constantijn Huygens Prize. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Kees van Beijnum is a Dutch writer. He grew up in Amsterdam, where his mother had a bar near the Zeedijk. Before he became a writer, he was a journalist. He made his debut as a novelist in 1991 with Over het IJ, a non-fiction novel about a murder case in Amsterdam.
Annejet van der Zijl is a well-known and widely read writer in the Netherlands. So far, she has written seven non-fiction books and one fiction book, most of which have become bestsellers. Her work has been awarded the Gouden Ganzenveer and the Amsterdam Prize for the Arts.
Eric Visser is the founder of both the Dutch publishing house De Geus and the Dutch-based publishing house World Editions.
De Harmonie is a Dutch publishing company best known today as the publisher of the Harry Potter series of books since the 1990s, though their largest success didn't come until the 2000s and since 14 February 2008 they are located on Herengracht in Amsterdam.
Thomas Blondeau was a Flemish writer, poet and journalist. He studied literature at the University of Leuven and the University of Leiden. He wrote for newspapers including Mare, Deng, De Revisor, De Standaard and Dif.
Hans Renders is a professor of history and biography theory at the University of Groningen. Since 2004, he is also the head of the university's "Biography Institute".
Pieter Jacobus Hagen (1942) is a Dutch journalist and non-fiction author, who started his career as a reporter for the national newspaper Trouw in 1967. Later he served as teacher and dean of the School of Journalism in Utrecht (1983–1995), editor-in-chief of De Journalist/Villamedia (1995–2002), and columnist for NRC Handelsblad (2003–2005). He has been publishing non-fiction books since 1982, and has been a full-time author of history books since 2002.
Marijke Hanegraaf is a Dutch poet. Since 1997, she has lived in Nijmegen; she was the city’s official poet in 2013 and 2014.
Josine Reuling was the pen name of the Dutch writer, Gerardina Anna Reuling. Known for her psychological novels, her characters called into question conservative societal behaviors. Her novel Terug naar het eiland was one of the first lesbian literary works published in The Netherlands. It was unique in that it did not evaluate lesbianism on a binary trajectory or in relationship to masculinity or masculine traits. There are several streets named in her honor throughout The Netherlands.
Pauline van de Ven is a Dutch writer and visual artist. She made her debut with Uitgeverij Balans in 1997 with the social satire Drijvend Paviljoen and wrote six novels and a number of illustrated stories. In 2014 she received the Halewijn Prize for her entire oeuvre. Her digital painting has been awarded several times.
