Daanje made her debut in 1993 and wrote novels, short story collections and screenplays in the following years. Her books went unnoticed by the general public for a long time. In 2020 that changed with The Remembered Soldier.
That success was further increased with the historical novel The song of stork and dromedary, which appeared last year. The work has sold tens of thousands of copies and was the first book to receive both major literary prizes, the Boekenbon Literature Prize and the Libris Literature Prize.
The jury of the Constantijn Huygens Prize says that the 58-year-old Daanje has spent the past thirty years building “a literary universe that has no equal in terms of span and narrative drive”.
The Constantijn Huygens Prize is an annual oeuvre prize that has been awarded by the Jan Campert Foundation on behalf of the municipality of The Hague since 1947. There is 12,000 euros attached to it.
Previous winners include Lucebert, Harry Mulisch and Annie MG Schmidt. Last year, the prize went to Marion Bloem. Anjet Daanje will receive the prize on 21 January.