The 17th edition of the international literary festival Writers Unlimited – Winternachten takes place in The Hague from 19 to 22 January and features more than 100 authors, journalists, presenters and musicians. Enjoy a long weekend in The Hague and choose from more than 50 programmes on five stages in the Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag.
This year’s theme is ‘Keep on Dreaming’: a tribute to the dreamers, believers in utopia, the pursuers of ideals. Writers and journalists from the Netherlands and from farther afield speak ouit on their dreams. They will dream with us about freedom and how it can be realised. Writers Unlimited Winternachten Festival 2012 offers a mixture of current affairs and literature, music and film in a varied programme.
Writers Unlimited – Winternachten Festival begins on the afternoon of 19 January with the presentation of the Oxfam Novib PEN Awards. Nigerian journalist/writer Helon Habila gives the Winternachtenlezing (the keynote speech) on Thursday evening. Winternacht 1 and 2 on Friday and Saturday offer a wide variety of literary programmes, music, film and dance.
Highlights
Brazilian journalist and novelist Edney Silvestre (the launch of A felicidade e fácil (Happiness is easy) was a happening, with writers, actresses and other fans queueing in order to get hold of an autographed copy)
British intellectural John Gray (Al Qaida and What it Means to be Modern)
South African writer Kopano Matlwa (a young and rising star of South African literature and one of the leading representatives of the coconut generation)
Lebanese translator, journalist and poet Joumana Haddad (How I killed Sheherazade, confessions of an angry Arab woman, an autobiographical essay on the sexual liberation of Arab women)
English writer Peter Milligan (the spiritual father of internationally successful surrealist comic books like Shade, The Changing Man, Hellblazer and Skin)
Nigerian poet and prose writer Helon Habila (Waiting for an Angel, which received the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2003).
On Saturday afternoon the Reading Club of NRC Handelsblad tackles F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. On Sunday morning VPRO Radio broadcasts OVT Live, a history programme, from Brasserie Dudok. The festival ends on Sunday afternoon with a programme in de Koninklijke Schouwburg, in which the richness and diversity of the work of the acclaimed writer Hella Haasse are celebrated.
Tickets
Tickets for Writers Unlimited cost € 27.50 per person for the programmes on Friday and Saturday evening. You can order tickets online or at the box office of Theater aan het Spui. Tickets for Winternacht 1 and 2 give you access to all five venues in the theatre. With a ticket you are free to walk in and out of all the programmes.
The festival also features the Oxfam Novib - PEN Awards (€ 15 for tickets) as well as the Winternachten lecture by Nigerian journalist/writer Helon Habila (€ 17.50 for tickets). Both events will be held on Thursday, 19 January.
Please visit the website of Writers Unlimited for more information, www.winternachten.nl.
