Sacha Bronwasser, Esther Gerritsen and Rob van Essen are among the best-known nominees of the Libris Literature Prize for the best novel of the year this year. They are on the shortlist together with Cobi van Baars, Frank Nellen and Maud Vanhauwaert. Women are in the majority among the six nominees – and that is the first time in the history of the prize, which is being awarded for the 31st time this year. On Monday evening, the jury, chaired by SER chairman and current informant Kim Putters, announced the selection News hour.
Among the contenders for the prize money of fifty thousand euros are two literary hits from last year’s breakthrough writers: Sacha Bronwasser’s bestseller Listen and Frank Nellens The invisible ones, which recently won the Dutch Book Trade Prize. Also nominated are two well-known names on the literary awards circuit, both with daring, science-fiction-style novels. Rob van Essen, awarded the Libris Prize in 2019 for The good soninsisted with I will come back to this again to the shortlist. Of Area 19 Esther Gerritsen is on a Libris shortlist for the fifth time – without having yet won the prize.
The surprises on the list are The unintentional ones by Cobi van Baars, the fictionalized story of a true story, and Toscathe first novel by poet Maud Vanhauwaert, who is also the only Flemish on the list.
Not on the list
This surpasses the novels of previous prize winners Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer and Tommy Wieringa: Alkibiades and Nirvana yielded sales successes but also mixed reviews. Books that were given great chances, by Richard Osinga – Mintwhich reached the highest levels of the Boekenbon Literature Prize and the Boon Literature Prize – Roxane van Iperen (I promise), and Gilles van der Loo – Cafe Dorian, which received universally favorable reviews – were stuck on the longlist. It was remarkable that two books were missing from that list of eighteen, which had already won other literary prizes: Mauk by Jan Vantoortelboom (Bookbon Literature Prize 2023) and No goodbye today by Daan Heerma van Voss (BNG Bank Literature Prize 2023).
‘Resonant novel’
The jury’s choice includes both science fiction and fierce realism. An incredible but true story about two Limburg twin sisters who are given up for adoption, placed with different families against the agreement and remain ignorant of each other’s existence for a long time: Cobi van Baars (1967) shows “how this can be achieved through literature.” to make”. The unintentional ones According to the jury, is a “long-lasting novel about wrong assessments with far-reaching consequences.” Frank Nellen also shows reality “in a sparkling style” in the novel The invisible ones, which is set against the backdrop of the Soviet Union in decline. His novel “exposed life under repressive regimes in a very convincing way,” according to the jury.
The jury was chomping at the bit Tosca, which is described as “a literary journey that slaloms between prose and poetry but remains exciting and compelling at all times.” In Maud Vanhauwaert’s debut novel (1984), a translator concerns herself with the fate of a pitiful girl and becomes increasingly captured by her.
Zou Rob van Essen (1963) with time travel book I will come back to this win his second Libris Prize? In any case, the jury speaks of “a rare rich book in which expectations, memories and references are played virtuoso, with style, structure and themes” that you “shut in amazement.” The compliments are also great Area 19 by Esther Gerritsen. The novel is based on an “unimaginable and crazy” idea: most of humanity has suddenly left for another planet. But the “incredibly flexible, almost nonchalant narration” charmed the jury, who also had an eye for “a deeper meaning of this good read makes a rich and layered book”, and which is “brilliantly” woven into the story.
The jury report calls only one book a “magisterial” novel: Listen, the most critically acclaimed novel of 2023. The second novel by Sacha Bronwasser (1968) is about an au pair in Paris in the eighties and her history as a photography student. “It contains sentences of great beauty, it has depth and encourages wry-melancholic reflections.”