International Literature Festival The Hague

Winternachten 2017

Thu 19 January - Sun 22 January 2017

From Thursday 19 January up to and including Sunday 22 January 2017 Winternachten Festival has brought together writers, journalist, thinkers, poets and audiences in Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag. The 22nd edition of the most beautiful literary event of The Netherlands carried the motto 'Is This the Real Life?' about what exists but remains hidden, and about fake that what isn't there but is shown to us.

During the festival events Friday & Saturday Night Unlimited this motto was at the heart of debates like This is Not America, IS: The Horror Show, Fiction in times of Fake and My Secret City.

Among the eighty guests, the festival welcomed top writers from The Netherlands like Arnon Grunberg, Tommy Wieringa, Bas Heijne and, from abroad, Ian Buruma, Colson Whitehead, Michel Faber, Tomas Sedlacek, Mikhail Shishkin and Salena Godden.

Friday and Saturday evening, Spoken Beat Night performed a mixture of jazz, spoken word, world music, live animation and funky beats. During the festival the Oxfam Novib PEN Awards (Thursday 19 January) and the Jan Campert prizes (Sunday 22 January) were handed out.

Winternachten is a four-day festival that inspires by different stories, new perspectives and topical themes. International and Dutch-language writers reflected during public interviews and debates, at film screenings and music performances on the larger as well as the more banal topics The Netherlands and Europe grapple with.

Winternachten welcomes everyone seeking food for thought, everyone interested in philosophy, novels, poems and non-fiction, everyone interested in getting a different perspective on topical themes, everyone wanting to listen or participate, wanting to meet and share.

Retrospect

Thursday 19 January 2017

20:00 - 22:00

Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1

Opening Night: Free the Word!

On the festival's Opening Night, the focus is on freedom of speech. The evening started with Mikhail Shishkin, one of the most prominent representatives of contemporary Russian literature, delivering …

Friday 20 January 2017

20:00 - 01:00

Theater aan het Spui & Filmhuis Den Haag

Friday Night Unlimited

A 'grand evening' full of literature, music and film in five auditoriums of Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag. One ticket gives access to all of the evening's writers' performances, debates, …

Saturday 21 January 2017

14:00 - 15:30

Institute of Social Studies

World Storytelling in the Institute of Social Studies

Listen to stories from near and far. They will be told by African, Latin American and Asian students, as well as by Winternachten Festival guests Salena Godden (UK) and Piotr Ibrahim Kalwas (Poland). …

14:00 - 15:15

Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1

Reading the Bible with Sedlacek

Reading the Bible with Sedlacek promises to be a highly inspiring experience: a meeting plus lecture plus dialogue with the world-famous macro-economist Tomas Sedlacek about the extremely fascinating …

14:45 - 17:30

Diverse locaties

Along Noordeinde: The Stories Behind the Façades

PROGRAMME SOLD OUT - This afternoon, writer and journalist Mira Feticu guides you, on behalf of the Winternachten Festival, to hidden stories along the Hague's toniest shopping street, Noordeinde. …

15:30 - 17:30

Theater en Filmhuis Dakota

World Stories at Dakota Theatre

There's nothing better than telling one another stories in these times of selfies and snapchat! World Stories now has become a beautiful tradition at Dakota Theatre: bring along an object that has …

16:00 - 17:15

Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1

NRC Live Reading Club: Louise O. Fresco

Director, scientist, writer and columnist Louise O. Fresco discusses Maria Dermoût's De tienduizend dingen ( Ten Thousand Things ) with the public, introduced by NRC Handelsblad newspaper's books …

20:00 - 01:00

Theater aan het Spui & Filmhuis Den Haag

Saturday Night Unlimited

Sunday 22 January 2017

10:00 - 12:00

Theater aan het Spui

VPRO O.V.T. Live

NO TICKETS LEFT - Every Sunday morning, the relevance of history is the focus of one of the most popular radio programs in the Netherlands. This edition of OVT will be broadcast live from the …

14:00 - 16:30

Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1

The Writers' Fest

A festive program built around the presentation of the Jan Campert Prizes, the literary awards of the City of The Hague. We celebrate Dutch literature with a variety of performances by writers, poets …