Winternachten 2006
Tue 17 January - Sun 22 January 2006
Where are they, those independent spirits, those unconventional thinkers, that in one go can turn your image of the world completely upside down? Can we still find them in this country? It appears as if Holland has drawn the blinds and is only occupied with itself, through an endless number of columns, news articles and editorial commentary. Therefore Winternachten, during the coldest weekend of the year, threw its doors and windows wide open and invited the world to come in. More than sixty authors, musicians and artists from nine different countries put us in the mood to search for the heroes of the mind in this eleventh edition of the literary festival Winternachten in The Hague.
At Winternachten authors not only read from their own work, they also participated in conversations, debates, concerts, public discussions, film programme's and even took part in a public dictation. They will wrote new work for the festival, such as satires, essays and an initial remake of the classic Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Appearing in this edition of Winternachten were artists from South Africa, Indonesia, Iran, Barbados, Surinam, Nigeria, Curaçao, St Martin and the Netherlands. With amongst others: P.F. Thomése, Frank Martinus Arion, Marlene Dumas, Freek de Jonge, Bas Haring, Austin Clarke, Dinar Rahayu, Theo Loevendie, Helon Habila, Marja Brouwers, Breyten Breytenbach, Jan Blokker, Pieter-Dirk Uys and Gerrit Komrij.
Click on the left menu for more information on the programmes.
Writers' Conference
A closed conference of eleven writers from eight countries took place during the festival. Read the report of the conference here in PDF.