Andrej Koerkov
(Russia, 1961) is a Ukrainian writer world famous for the mix of harsh realism and absurdist humour in his novels and non fiction books. He is a respected commentator on the situation in his country. In The President's Last Love, Kurkov employs humour and cynicism to describe how a boy manages to work his way up to become the most powerful man in the country. Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev, his eyewitness account of political unrest in the Ukraine, was published in 2014. Dairy of an Invasion (2022) and Our daily war (2024) are collections of Kurkov's writings and broadcasts. In 2024, he published The Silver Bone, the first part of The Kyiv Mysteries, his series of crime novels in historical settings. The second part The Stolen Heart will be published in 2025; the third part The Public Sauna Case is in development.
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The Flame of Freedom - Opening Writers Unlimited Festival 2025
With: Andrej Koerkov, Andrew Makkinga, Jan van Zanen, Judith Uyterlinde, Mamar, Nelleke Noordervliet, Onjuli Datta, Rešoketšwe Manenzhe, Viv Groskop
The 30th edition of the Writers Unlimited International Literature Festival The Hague has the theme On Fire. Fire symbolises destructive forces such as war and global warming on the one hand, but also love and freedom on the other. Jan van Zanen, mayor of The Hague, will officially open the festival.
The opening night is dedicated to free speech, with a keynote speech by Ukraine's most important writer Andrei Kurkov, whose two new books have just been published in Dutch translation: the gripping war diary Our Daily War and the Kyiv-based historical thriller The Silver Bone.
Other speakers are author Nelleke Noordervliet, who will read a column and British author and stand-up comedian Viv Groskop who will represent PEN International, the writers' organisation dedicated to freedom of expression.
This programme is also a preview and kick-off of the 30th edition of the festival, with readings, music and talks. Dutch national broadcaster NPO Radio 1-programme Kunststof presenter Andrew Makkinga will interview writers who will also perform elsewhere in the festival:
South African author Rešoketšwe Manenzhe wrote Scatterlings, her first novel about a young family broken up by the law that criminalised interracial relationships. The New York Times wrote: "a novel that is at once exquisitely intimate and globally ambitious." Rešoketšwe will also perform at both grand festival evening programmes Friday and Saturday Night Unlimited.
Famous British author, stand-up comedian, podcast creator, TV and radio presenter Viv Groskop has written seven books and creates the podcast How to Own the Room, listened to millions of times, on topics including self-confidence, public speaking and dealing with stressful situations.
Onjuli Datta and her wife Mikaella Clements, who work and live in Berlin, co-authored the novels The View was Exhausting and Feast While You Can. They will read a fragment of their own work in the form of a dialogue.
Mamar, a formation of young musicians from Syria, Turkey, the US, Italy and the Netherlands provides musical contributions. The band members are Barış Ofluoğlu (double bass), Sebastiaan West (piano), Rita Brancato (drums), Talaf Fayad (ud) and Leah Uijterlinde (clarinet, vocals).
The programme includes the screening of the short film Monument for murdered writers and journalists 2024, a project by Theatre of Wrong Decisions, Committee To Protect Journalists (CPJ) and PEN International.
The Flame of Freedom - Opening Writers Unlimited Festival 2025 is curated by Ilonka Reintjens.
Festival tip 1: after the opening night programme, join us for the spoken word event Mensen Zeggen Dingen x Writers Unlimited Festival, at Paard (starts 21:30 hours): the literary afterparty with poetry, poetry slam, prose and punchlines by Palestinian-American poet George Abraham, Aruban spoken word artist and poet Rosabelle Illes and, from The Netherlands, Sabina Lukovic, Duimalot and Damaris. Host will be Dean Bowen.
Get a discount here by buying a reduced price ticket for Mensen Zeggen Dingen x Writers Unlimited Festival at the online Paard box office for only 5,- (regular price 10,-).Festival tip 2: Rešoketšwe Manenzhe, Viv Groskop, Onjuli Datta and Andrei Kurkov will also perform during the grand festival nights Friday and Saturday Night Unlimited: experience the full festival experience here and choose your own route along performances, readings, talks, music and films with many authors and artists from home and abroad on five stages of Theater aan het Spui and the adjacent Filmhuis Den Haag.
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Book of My Life: Andrei Kurkov in conversation with Abdelkader Benali
Writers tell us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Abdelkader Benali.
Andrei Kurkov chose as his favorite book Martin Eden, a novel by American author Jack London about a young autodidact struggling to become a writer. It was first serialized in The Pacific Monthly magazine from 1908 to 1909 and then first published in book form in 1909.
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Movies that Matter x Writers Unlimited Festival Special: 'Our Daily War'
Writer Andrei Kurkov and filmmaker Mariia Ponomarova are from Ukraine. Kurkov still lives there, Ponomarova lives in Rotterdam. Both their work deals with Ukraine and is strongly influenced by the war.
In what circumstances did their work come about? What is their working method and what are the differences in approach between a writer and a filmmaker? What do they hope to trigger in the reader or viewer with their texts or film?
Kurkov and Ponomarova will read and show excerpts from their work and react to each other's texts and images under a discussion moderated by Bahram Sadeghi. A cross-over programme with film and literature, on art and human rights, co-organised by Writers Unlimited and Movies that Matter. English spoken.
Andrei Kurkov is a Ukrainian writer world famous for the mix of harsh realism and absurdist humour in his novels and non fiction books. He is a respected commentator on the situation in his country. In The President's Last Love, Kurkov employs humour and cynicism to describe how a boy manages to work his way up to become the most powerful man in the country. Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev, his eyewitness account of political unrest in the Ukraine, was published in 2014. Dairy of an Invasion (2022) and Our daily war (2024) are collections of Kurkov's writings and broadcasts. In 2024, he published The Silver Bone, the first part of The Kyiv Mysteries, his series of crime novels in historical settings. The second part The Stolen Heart will be published in 2025; the third part The Public Sauna Case is in development.
Mariia Ponomarova is a Ukrainian film director, creative producer and film industry professional based in The Netherlands since 2014. Mariia studied directing at Karpenko-Karyi Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema & Television in Ukraine graduating in 2013. In 2016 she completed the Master of Film artistic research programme at the Netherlands Film Academy. Fiction and documentary films Mariia worked on were screened at such acclaimed festivals as DokLeipzig, IDFA, Sarajevo FF, Sheffield DocFest, Chicago IFF, Krakow FF, Clermont-Ferrand ISFF, Go Short ISFF, Palm Springs SFF and more. Her debut feature documentary Nice Ladies had an international premiere at HotDocs and received a Special Mention at DocudaysUA IHRFF. Mariia is a member of the European Film Academy and a Senior Consultant at the Documentary Association of Europe.
Bahram Sadeghi works as a programme maker and debate leader for Pakhuis de Zwijger and Movies that Matter, among others. In 2021, he published his second book, The Attack That Changed Our Lives, in which Bahram describes the impact of an attack in the Sinai desert, both on the lives of those directly involved and on his own life.Festivaltip: Ukrainian writer Andrei Kurkov performs in the 2025 festival also during The Flame of Freedom (Thursday 23 January 2025) in which he reads his festival opening speech, and during Saturday Night Unlimited (25 January 2025, Theater aan het Spui) as a participant of the programme Writing in Times of War, together with US historian and writer Timothy Snyder and the Dutch-Ukrainian author Lisa Weeda.
Festivaltip 2: the upcoming festival edition of Movies That Matter takes place from 21 up to and including 29 March 2025 in Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag.
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Writing in Times of War
Timothy Snyder, renowned American historian specialising in the history of Central and Central Europe, opens Writing in Times of War with a mini-lecture on the Russian attack on Ukraine.
Writers Andrei Kurkov, Timothy Snyder and Lisa Weeda then explore in conversation with Eva Hartog, using their own work and the work of their fellow writers, what it means to write about and in times of war. Is language adequate, does language offer comfort and is language the best medium to tell the world about the situation in a war zone? Is fiction sometimes necessary to describe the facts?
Timothy Snyder is an internationally leading historian specialising in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the Holocaust. The professor of History at Yale University has published influential studies such as Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central Europe: A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz (1998); The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 (2003); Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine (2005); The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke (2008); Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010), Thinking the Twentieth Century (with Tony Judt, 2012); Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (2015); On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017); and The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (2018) and the highly topical On Freedom (2024).
Andrei Kurkov is a Ukrainian writer famous for the mix of harsh realism and absurdist humour in his novels and non fiction books. He was born in Leningrad, grows up in Kyiv and writes in Russian and Ukrainian. His works have been translated in 37 languages and were published in 65 countries. He is a respected commentator on the situation in his country. In The President's Last Love, Kurkov employs humour and cynicism to describe how a boy manages to work his way up to become the most powerful man in the country. Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev, his eyewitness account of political unrest in the Ukraine, was published in 2014. Dairy of an Invasion (2022) and Our daily war (2024) are collections of Kurkov's writings and broadcasts as well as a remarkable record of a brilliant writer at the forefront of a 21st-century war. In 2024, he published The Silver Bone, the first part of The Kyiv Mysteries, his series of crime novels in historical settings. The second part The Stolen Heart will be published in 2025; the third part The Public Sauna Case is in development.
LIsa Weeda writes prose, plays and non-fiction. Her chapbook De benen van Petrovski (Petrovski's Legs), a literary account of her trip to the Ukraine, where her grandmother comes from and a large part of her family still lives, was published in 2016. Her debut novel Aleksandra was published in 2021. In it, her grandmother is the hub of the story. She sends main character Lisa to the Donbas to search for her uncle Kolja. The novel, grimly topical due to the war in Ukraine, encompasses in a maelstrom of dreams and nightmares both the history of a country and a family. Weeda has published work in De Revisor, Tirade, Das Magazin, De Titaan and De Optimist. In 2024 she published her novel Dans dans revolutie (Dance, dance, revolution).
Eva Hartog is a Dutch-Russian journalist who worked in Russia for ten years. Hartog studied Political Philosophy at the Leiden University. She was the editor-in-chief of the English-language newspaper The Moscow Times from 2017 to 2019. As a correspondent for publications such as De Groene Amsterdammer, she lived and worked in Moscow until her visa was not renewed in 2023. Now, she is a journalist for Politico where she publishes about Russia and about autocratic tendencies across the globe.
Writing in Times of War is curated for Writers Unlimited Festival 2025 by Ilonka Reintjens.
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Declic: Prospects of Dialogue in Post Chaos Time
With: Abdelfettah Kilito, Andrej Koerkov, Bejan Matur, Iman Humaydan, Nelleke Noordervliet, Ngwatilo Mawiyoo, Youssouf Amine Elalamy
How were the dialogues between the antagonistic parties and ideas reconceived in the post chaotic times in the past? What are our prospects today for a post-chaotic world? How can we prepare for it intellectually?
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Chaos and Dialogue
With: Andrej Koerkov, Bejan Matur, Iman Humaydan, Mohamed Achaari, Nelleke Noordervliet, Ngwatilo Mawiyoo, Taieb Belghazi
Can the rapid changes occurring in the world since the early 21st century (financial crises, the Arab Spring and its aftermaths, the Ukrainian crisis, refugees, terrorism...) be qualified as chaos? What are the (relevant, useful, helpful, hopeful...) questions that are can be raised in this context in a cross-cultural dialogue?
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Authority and Dialogue
With: Abdelhay Moudden, Andrej Koerkov, Bejan Matur, Driss Ksikes, Iman Humaydan, Nelleke Noordervliet, Ngwatilo Mawiyoo
A panel discussion, including readings by the participating authors. On what basis can we identify the souces of 'authority' in a dialogue across nations? Morality? Expertise? International Law? Ideologies? Esthetics? On what basis do we settle the question of right and wrong. Do such concepts as multiculturalism, pluralism, diversity, tolerance still hold? Moderated by Abdelhay Moudden. The Moroccan participants will be published later this week.
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Travelling Ideas
With: Abdellatif Khayati, Andrej Koerkov, Bejan Matur, Iman Humaydan, Khalid Bekkaoui, Nelleke Noordervliet, Ngwatilo Mawiyoo, Sadiq Rddad, Souad Slaoui, Youssef Tibesse
A programme in Fez University. Ideas have always travelled, of course. Is globalization and glocalization impacting the nature, the content, the directions, the impact...) of the travelling ideas in a fundamental way? Or is the business of travels as usual?
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When Ideas Change
With: Andrej Koerkov, Bejan Matur, Iman Humaydan, Khadija Merouazi, Mourad Mkinsi, Najib Bounahai, Ngwatilo Mawiyoo
The shifts in the political positions that we are undergoing in the last few years: rise of extremisms and fundamentalisms, decline of the left, mounting nationalisms; can they be interpreted through the lenses of history, of past events, or are they unprecedented? Are these changing ideas signaling unprecedented changes yet to come?
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Seven Deadly Sins
Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger and sloth. The seven deadly sins are inseparable from literature, film and visual art. The festival asked seven authors to each choose one and write a fresh text about it. Tonight you'll hear sinful stories from home and abroad, with accompanying music by Dick van der Harst. A superb literary-musical programme to enjoy with abandon. José Eduardo Agualusa, Slavenka Drakulić, Mira Feticu, Petina Gappah, Daan Heerma van Voss, Andrej Kurkov and Neel Mukherjee read in their own language, with simultaneous translations projected in English and Dutch.
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The text of my life: Andrej Kurkov
In Filmhuis Studio A the festival's guest writers present their favourite literary texts and explain why a particular poem, novel excerpt, or song lyric influenced their life and work. Which memory, what feeling does this text call up for them? A continuous interview programme, in which the audience also talks with the writers. Hosted by Arjan Peters. In English
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Writing in Times of Turmoil
Can a writer continue to seek refuge in imagination when all hell breaks loose? Andrej Kurkov wrote novels such as The President's Last Love before revolution broke out in his hometown of Kiev. He decided to write the non-fiction book Ukraine Diaries, about the Ukrainian uprising. When the Arab Spring broke out, novelist Alaa al Aswani camped out in Cairo's Tahrir Square for days on end. He described the revolution in About Egypt:
The provocative considerations of a novelist, in which every piece ends with the phrase "Democracy is the solution".Alaa al Aswany replaces Mircea Cărtărescu, who was unable to appear due to personal reasons.
