Angelina Enny
(Indonesia, 1978) is a writer, actor and theatre director. Her debut collection of stories, Nocturnal Melancholia, about the beauty and esthetics of depression, was nominated for the Kusala Literature Award and has been reworked for the theatre. In 2019, Angelina collaborated with the Dutch writer and musician Robin Block on the poetry collection In Between, Di Antara. In it, they seek out their personal stories, (family) memories and dreams, as well as their shared (Indonesian) history. The project resulted in the performance A Passage, Sebuah Antara, a mix of poetry, songs, movement and images, which they performed in 2019 at the Literature and Ideas Festival (LIFEs) in Jakarta. In 2021, her script The Fifteenth Night about the 1998 Riots, was nominated for Jakarta Film Fund. Her new work, Finding Sita in the Indies, is a novelette about the ancestral identity in colonial era.
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Archive available for: Angelina Enny
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Mensen Zeggen Dingen x Writers Unlimited Festival
With: Angelina Enny, Benzokarim, Dean Bowen, Nisrine Mbarki, Ronelda S. Kamfer, Sjaan Flikweert, XILLAN
In Mensen Zeggen Dingen x Writers Unlimited Festival, two international authors -- Ronelda Kamfer (South Africa) and Angelina Enny (Indonesia) let their voices be heard alongside those of Dutch poets and spoken-word artists Dean Bowen, Sjaan Flikweert and Nisrine Mbarki. Alternative R&B-artist XILLAN joined with a musical performance. Host was Benzokarim!
Things are nothing if they are not given words. That is exactly what Mensen Zeggen Dingen (People Say Things) does. Speaking them out, discussing them, putting exclamation marks or question marks behind them and setting the order. The platform for poetry and performance passes by with club shows in PAARD (The Hague), Theater Bellevue (Amsterdam), Tivoli Vredenburg (Utrecht), Doornroosje (Nijmegen) and festivals such as Lowlands and Down The Rabbit Hole.
Mensen Zeggen Dingen and Writers Unlimited Festival brought a special International Literature Festival The Hague edition to PAARD with poetry, poetry slam, prose, music and punchlines.
Festival tip: also come to the grand festival events Friday Night Unlimited (19 January) and Saturday Night Unlimited (20 January)! Both nights you choose your own route along some 20 programmes on five stages in Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag.
From 18 to 21 January 2024, the festival was to be found in theatres, libraries and schools throughout The Hague: from Theater aan het Spui, Filmhuis Den Haag, Koninklijke Schouwburg and Paard to Theater Dakota, the Nieuw Waldeck, Schilderswijk and Ypenburg libraries and Haagse Hogeschool. With over ninety writers, poets and spoken-word artists and musicians from the Netherlands and abroad. With readings, prose, poetry, storytelling, spoken word, author interviews, topical talks, films and music.
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Book of My Life with Angelina Enny
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.
Angelina Enny chose as a favourite the essay collection Novelist as a Vocation, a unique 'autobiography of a writer's life', in which Haruki Murakami speaks with rare candour about himself. Murakami is one of the most loved and best-read writers worldwide.
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Opening Night
With: Adriaan van Dis, Angelina Enny, Antjie Krog, Cynthia Mc Leod, Ellen Deckwitz, Goenawan Mohamad, Hassnae Bouazza, Jolyn Phillips, Karin Amatmoekrim, Nelleke Noordervliet, Petina Gappah, Reggie Baay, Rosabelle Illes, Shailesh Bahoran, Sigrid Kaag, Simon(e) van Saarloos, Ton van de Langkruis, Vamba Sherif
A fantastic line-up of fifteen Dutch and international authors provided a preview of the festival with their new poetry and prose, mixed with dance performances by Shailesh Bahoran. This festive evening celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Winternachten festival with the presentation of the (Dutch language) anniversary anthology De verovering van Jupiter (Over de dekolonisatie van de geest) (Conquering Jupiter: On decolonising the mind). The festival was opened by Sigrid Kaag, Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation.
At the behest of Writers Unlimited, all contributors wrote a short essay, story or poem for the anthology to reflect on the festival theme. It is a unique collection of 28 wonderful pieces of writing edited by Toef Jaeger and published by Jurgen Maas. It is available at regular bookstores and online.
In the same venue in which the first Indonesian Winternacht (forerunner of Winternachten Festival) took place in 1995 - the Theater aan het Spui - on this jubilee opening night we proudly presented (inter)national writers that have developed a special bond with our festival and its audience. These included: Goenawan Mohamad (Indonesia) and Nelleke Noordervliet - who both performed at the first Winternacht in 1995 -, Adriaan van Dis, Antjie Krog (South Africa), Reggie Baay, Manon Uphoff, Vamba Sherif and Cynthia McLeod (Suriname). Tip: be sure to look up these writers in our online video and sound archive!
Writers Unlimited will always continue to seek out talent, and in 25 years has presented many debuting local and foreign writers. How wonderful, then, to welcome on this evening - once again, or for the first time: Angelina Enny (Indonesia), Rosabelle Illes (Aruba), Jolyn Phillips (South Africa) and, from the Netherlands, Karin Amatmoekrim, Simon(e) van Saarloos and Ellen Deckwitz. We awaited their appearances and recitations with bated breath.
Theatre maker, choreographer and hiphop innovator Shailesh Bahoran performed parts of his dance solo Heritage that was inspired by his Hindostani background; a short video of The Theatre of Wrong Decisions was shown and the Hesce Mourits Quartet of the Royal Conservatory The Hague also performed.
The Opening Night was hosted by Hassnae Bouazza.
The performance of Manon Uphoff, announced for this programme, has been canceled due to illness.
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Book of My Life: Angelina Enny
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: Hassnae Bouazza.
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Letters from Overseas
In 1795, the once-enslaved but later freed Wilhelmina Kelderman sent a heartbreaking letter from Paramaribo to her former master. The letter never arrived, as it was on a ship hijacked by the English, ended up in an archive, and was only opened two centuries later.
Writers Unlimited festival asked nine authors to write a letter to someone in a (former) colony, inspired by Wilhelmina's entreaty, and to present it at this event. They will recite them in their mother tongue or preferred language of writing; English or Dutch translations will be simultaneously projected.
Participants are Antjie Krog (South Africa), Alfred Birney, Reggie Baay, Ellen Deckwitz, Rosabelle Illes (Aruba), Jolyn Phillips (South Africa), Jasper Albinus, poet Angelina Enny (Indonesia) and poet, musician and theatre maker Robin Block.
Tip: Antjie Krog, Reggie Baay, Ellen Deckwitz and Jolyn Phillips will also read from their contributions to the 25th anniversary Winternachten festival anthology during the Opening Night - A Free Mind on Wednesday, 15 January at Theater aan het Spui.
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Indonesia: History is an Always-Broken Promise
Writers from Indonesia and The Netherlands look at the history and the way former colonizers are viewed now. Chris Keulemans talks with them about how this influences their work and invites them to read from their work.
Besides being a famous poet, Goenawan Mohamad is also a journalist, essayist, editor and columnist. He contributed to the formation of the Indonesian language, Bahasa Indonesia. He participated in many ways in the struggle against Suharto's regime. In 1995, he was a guest writer at the inaugural Writers Unlimited festival and has returned several times since to The Hague to take part again.
Angelina Enny is a writer, actor and theatre director. Her story debut, Nokturnal Melankolia, was adapted for the stage. In 2019 she collaborated with Dutch writer and musician Robin Block on a volume of poetry, In Between, Di Antara, in which they explore their personal stories, (family) memories and dreams, as well as their shared (Indonesian) history. Enny says: "For me, historical events consist of personal stories. Stories of people whose chronicles we have forgotten. That is specifically why we need to tell them."
The grandparents of poet. musician and theatre maker Robin Block fled the Dutch East Indies in 1949. They crossed the ocean to build a new life in the Netherlands, a country of which they were official citizens, but where they had never set foot and which did not provide a warm welcome.
Tip: Angelina Enny and Goenawan Mohamad read from their own work at Opening Night - A Free Mind on Wednesday, 15 January. Robin Block performs together with poet Ellen Deckwitz in 'Indische roots in poëzie en muziek' in Biblotheek Nieuw Waldeck on Friday evening 17 January.
