Writer and literary historian René van Stipriaan has with his book The Silent: The Life of William of Orange won the Libris History Prize 2022. The jury announced the prize winner on Sunday during a live broadcast of the radio program OVT. Van Stipriaan, who specializes in the field of the Dutch Golden Age, will receive 20,000 euros.
“William of Orange is at the top of the list of classic patriotic heroes. Many contemporary biographers would therefore have been pleased to tear him off his pedestal, by measuring his evil deeds as widely as possible. But René van Stipriaan refuses to choose between glorifying and debunking,” the jury report said The Silent. The eight-member jury calls it a “rarely thorough and pleasantly written book, which surpasses all previous biographies about William of Orange”. Van Stipriaan spent twenty years researching the life of William of Orange.
Also read: William of Orange steered history in the decisive direction, says his biographer
The Libris History Prize is awarded every year to historical books that appeal to a wide audience and is an initiative of the Historical Newspaperone hundred Libris bookshops, the Dutch Open Air Museum in Arnhem, the VPRO, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the daily newspaper Fidelity.
Also read this review: William of Orange was never afraid to spread fake news