Anjet Daanje, born in Wijster, was awarded the Boekenbon Literatuurprijs 2022 with her book ‘The song of stork and dromedary’. She was no longer surprised by winning the prize.
The Boekenbon Literatuurprijs is the successor to the AKO Literatuurprijs and is awarded annually by a jury of so-called professional readers (reviewers, booksellers and teachers) from Flanders and the Netherlands. The award is a prize for the best Dutch-language literary book of the year (between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022), fiction or non-fiction.
“The jury chose a book that reads like a train, but at the same time demands a lot from the reader,” said jury chairman Guy Verhofstadt, former Prime Minister of Belgium, among others. “It is bursting with elaborate intertextuality, overflowing with admirably ambitious changes of style and containing extraordinary reflections on authorship. Each chapter is like a nugget and together they form a literary tour de force.”
The prize is accompanied by a cash prize of 50,000 euros. What will she do with it? “I’m going to live on that,” says Daanje. “That’s my income. An unexpected income, but still. I’m just going to pay the rent and the energy bill.”