Back to Agenda

22 Feb

15:00

De Coenen

Johan M. Coenenstraat 4, Amsterdam

In Dutch. Writer of novels, short stories, essays, and columns; who she is, and what drives her.

Literary Salon: Mariken Heitman

More info & tickets

'New life arises in the messy corners of the mind.'

We are greatly honored to welcome Mariken Heitman, an acclaimed writer. Besides her writing, Mariken Heitman is a biologist and gardener. She writes beautiful novels in which gender and nature play a role, lesbian relationships are a matter of course, and metaphors lead to fantastic sentences, like the motto above.

Musical contribution by Nicolaas Elsthout.

Cost: €10.00, including coffee and tea.

About Her Work

In January 2019, her debut De wateraap (The Water Ape) was published, which was nominated for the Jan Wolkers Prize, The Bronze Owl, and was shortlisted for the Anton Wachter Prize. In this sensory story, Mariken Heitman explores the gentle resistance of an individual against a straitjacket. How do you become human, if that means being either a woman or a man?

Wormmaan (Worm Moon) was published in August 2021 and won the Libris Literature Prize. In a moving inward search, the main character Elke discovers the connection between dwarf elephants, peas, and the becoming of a person—her own in particular.

De mierenkaravaan (The Ant Caravan) is Mariken Heitman's third novel, published in 2024. It is an enchanting story about the life of a sick gardener in and with the garden, a story about the erosion and desire to hold onto identity, about how everything that lives is interconnected, and therefore, so are we.