C. Buddingh'-Prize - Poetry Debut Collection of the Year
Wie schrijft het beste Nederlandstalige poëziedebuut van het jaar
C. Buddingh' Prize 2024
Since 1988, Poetry International has awarded the best Dutch-language poetry debut of the year with the C. BUDDINGH'-PRIJS VOOR NIEUWE NEDERLANDSTALIGE POËZIE. With the award, Poetry International draws more attention to talented new voices in Dutch-language poetry. And with success! For now well-known poets such as Joke van Leeuwen, Tonnus Oosterhoff, Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer and Anna Enquist or - more recently - Marieke Lucas Rijneveld and Radna Fabias, the C. Buddingh' Prize was the first important trophy on their wall. In 2023, Alara Adilow won the 'Buddingh' with "Mythen en Stoplichten," published by Prometheus.
Meet the jury of the C. Buddingh'-Prize 2024
Toef Jaeger
Toef Jaeger is an editor at NRC Handelsblad. In 2015, she published her book Koning Eenoog, a migrant story about the writer and artist Henk van Woerden. Together with Hanneke Chin-A-Fo, she wrote a book about the rise and fall of Polare, the largest bookstore chain in the Netherlands. In her latest book De jongens van Barbarber (2021), she describes the story of the magazine Barbarber, which, with poets such as Bernlef and K. Schippers, brought humour and dada to Dutch literature.
Photo © Annemarieke van den Broek
Lisette Ma Neza
Lisette Ma Neza is a Dutch poet, musician and filmmaker based in Brussels. Since January this year, she has been Brussels' first city poet. In 2017, she won the Belgian Poetry Slam championship and came second at both the European and World Slam Poetry Championships. She sings in her own poetry band and recently signed a contract for her first book.
Joost Oomen
Joost Oomen is a poet, writer, theatre maker, DJ and drummer. He was house poet of the University of Groningen, city poet of Groningen and columnist for Dagblad van het Noorden and Leeuwarder Courant. As a poet and performer, he is at home in the absurd like no other. He made a name for himself with novels such as Het perenlied (2020), Visjes (2022) and the collection Lievegedicht (2023). De Volkskrant proclaimed him the literary talent of 2021, and he almost became De Slimste Mens that year.
Photo © Liz van den Akker
C. Buddingh'-Online Book Club featuring Ingmar Heytze
Inzendingen C. Buddingh'-prijs 2024
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2023: 'Mythen en stoplichten' poetry debut collection of the year
36th C. Buddingh' Prize goes to Alara Adilow
Photo's: Rosa Quist
Poetry International's C. Buddingh' Prize 2023 has been won by Alara Adilow, for her poetry debut 'Mythen en stoplichten', published by Prometheus. Adilow was awarded the annual prize for the best Dutch-language poetry debut during the festive closing program of the 53rd Poetry International Festival. The jury praised 'Mythen en stoplichten' as "a collection about identity, such as you rarely come across at the moment. Twenty-six poetry debuts were submitted for the 36th C. Buddingh' Prize. Besides Alara Adilow, the debut collections of Laura Broekhuysen ('We capals'), Babeth Fonchie Fotchind ('Plooi') and Astrid Haerens ('Oerhert') stood a chance of winning the prize. The jury included poet Sasja Janssen, poetry critic and teacher Janita Monna and slam poet Seckou Ouologuem.
'Do you believe in angels, Alara?'
The jury was deeply impressed by the four nominated poetry debuts, but fell like a log for 'Mythen en stoplichten': 'A collection that creates a universe that proliferates, shrinks, dies and reinvents itself. A fabulous debut, in which every poem is full of beautiful lines,' the jury said.
From the jury report:
"'Mythen en stoplichten' by Alara Adilow (b. 1988) takes the reader on an overwhelming, penetrating and transformative journey, through the underworld to the mortal world, into the heavens above. She daringly opens all registers of language and shows in surprising and sensitive images what the lyrical self experiences and undergoes. (...) It is precisely through the grotesque, coarse, lyrical, precisely through myths, superstition, religion, but also through images from her youth that Adilow is able to relate to her queerness, the struggle with her transition, religion, the break with her mother, her desires, sexual fantasies, drugs, without losing sight of her surroundings for even a moment. The beauty is in the many contrasts, nicely captured in the title. The desperation, surrender and guts move. A collection about identity, such as you rarely come across them at the moment." Read the full jury report (in Dutch) here.
The New Voices of 2022 / 2023
Among the debut poets this year, there were almost twice as many women as men: seventeen to nine. The jury calls that a hopeful development. The newest generation of poets is close to the pulsing of time. We read about gender, non-binarity, queerness, climate, social media and the Internet: poetry as a stage for life-long struggles. What is striking here is that young poets have a preference for the prose poem, although the choice for this is not always enforced by the content. The jury could only nominate four collections. The jury therefore had special mentions for the collections Het nodige breken by Sara Eelen, Honger, heteronormativity en het universum by Lies Gallez and Laatste foto van de vrede by Jan-Paul Rosenberg.
About the C. Buddingh' Prize
Since 1988, Poetry International has annually awarded the best Dutch-language poetry debut with the C. Buddingh' Prize. With this Poetry International asks for extra attention for talented new voices in Dutch-language poetry. For many a poet of repute, the C. Buddingh' Prize was the first important prize won. Joke van Leeuwen, Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Anna Enquist, or more recently Lieke Marsman, Ellen Deckwitz, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld and Radna Fabias are among the laureates. In 2022, the C. Buddingh' Prize went to Maxime Garcia Diaz, for her collection Het is warm in de hivemind (De Bezige Bij).
De winnaar van de C. Buddingh'-prijs 2021
C. Buddingh'-winnaar 2020 Jens Meijen vanaf de Lijnbaanflats
Over C. Buddingh'
C. Buddingh' (Dordrecht, 1918) is een minor poet. Hij was geen vernieuwer maar een meeloper. Geen grootheid maar een beschouwer, en een grappenmaker. Dat lijkt misschien een onvriendelijke karakteristiek maar het is iets wat Buddingh' zelf heel goed wist – sterker nog, zelf schreef hij de woorden 'het is niet zo erg, daaruit put ik mijn kracht' in een gedicht waarin hij zichzelf karakteriseert als 'het neefje dat ook mee uit logeren mocht'. Zijn oeuvre volgt de sporen van de literatuurgeschiedenis op de voet, en bij elke nieuwe stroming mocht hij toch minstens een keer uit logeren.
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