“This is the ladies’ room!” Outside world demands a label, but Mariken does not want that | Home

What if nothing or no one can influence you: who are you then? That is the question Mariken Heitman asks in her book worm moon, recently awarded the Libris Literature Prize. About women who deviate from the norm and the search for a ‘pea’.

Mariken Heitman is 39 years old, born and raised in Rheden. Currently living in Nieuwegein. And she is a woman, ‘in the broadest sense of the word’. But she usually doesn’t get away with that explanation: the outside world wants to know from her how things are going precisely sit. Is she lesbian, bi, trans, non-binary?

In worm moonthe book with which she won the prestigious Libris Literature Prize, main character Elke is fighting the same battle against sticking labels.

Does the current gender debate make it easier to be who you are?
,,There is more talk about it now than before, but in fact little has changed: people want to know which box you fit into and there are even more boxes these days. And if they can’t place you, they find it difficult.”


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I took a writing course, as a ‘just fun’. That turned out unexpectedly well, because after three meetings I became addicted: so in love with writing

Mariken Heitman

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