On 8 June, the Centre for Environmental Humanities organises ‘Writing as Activism: Dutch Literature in the Climate Crisis’, an event with award-winning writers Geert Buelens and Maarten van der Graaff. Buelens and Van der Graaff will read from their recent literary work and discuss how they bring environmental activism into their creative writing.

The readings will be in Dutch (English translations will be shown on screen if available), and the conversation will be held in English.

Geert Buelens
Geert Buelens is a poet and professor of Modern Dutch Literature at Utrecht University and guest professor at Stellenbosch University. He published four collections of poetry. Ofwa (2021) included a long poem about the climate crisis. His latest non-fiction book Wat we toen al wisten. De vergeten groene geschiedenis van 1972 (2022) deals with the history of environmental awareness, activism, politics, and science. It was nominated for the Jan Wolkers Prize (for nature writing) and is the winner of the Boon Literature Prize (for best fiction or non-fiction book).

Maarten van der Graaff
Maarten van der Graaff (1987) is a writer and a poet. Vluchtautogedichten was published in 2013 and was awarded the C. Buddingh’ Prize for best debut poetry collection. Dood werk and Nederland in stukken, two other collections of poetry, were published in 2015 en in 2020. Van der Graaff is an editor and co-founder of Samplekanon, an online literary magazine. He teaches creative writing at ArtEZ in Arnhem. His first novel was Wormen en engelen. In Onder asfalt, his second novel, that was published last year, all the highways in the Netherlands disappear.
Location: Drift 23, 0.13