Anjet Daanje wins prestigious Libris Literature Prize 2023 for “The Song of Stork and Dromedary”

Writer Anjet Daanje has received the Libris Literature Prize for her novel The song of stork and dromedary. Professor and historian Beatrice de Graaf, chairman of the jury, announced the winner tonight in the Felix Meritis culture house in Amsterdam.

The jury unanimously chose the “novel of international allure that transcends borders and genres”. De Graaf called the book an ode to the imagination and to literature itself.

Daanje received the prize – a check for 50,000 euros – from State Secretary for Culture and Media Gunay Uslu:

Daanje dedicates the prize to Emily Brontë, the British writer from the nineteenth century who served as inspiration for her novel. “If she Wuthering Heights had not written, I would not have written my novel.”

Precisely because of that source of inspiration, Daanje wanted it to be a special book. That some call her novel not just a book, but a ‘reading experience’ was therefore the intention, she says. “Wuthering Heights was also a strange and idiosyncratic book at the time, in the nineteenth century. You can’t honor a book by writing a completely normal book about it.”

The song of stork and dromedary is about Eliza May Drayden, author of a controversial novel set in 19th century Yorkshire. Her book was maligned during her lifetime, but in the decades that followed it grew more and more into a masterpiece.

The jury of the Libris Literature Prize described Daanje’s novel in the jury report as ‘a fascinating literary quest that takes the reader from 19th century Yorkshire, through the First World War in Picardy and then back to England to finally end in the 21st century. century Groningen’.

Daanje looks frightened when she is asked to summarize in a few sentences what her book is about after the presentation, but makes an attempt anyway. “There are eleven chapters about eleven different characters, and all those characters are looking for something to hold on to in life. As a reader, you also have to find your own footing in the book, as it were, because you get a lot of information poured out on you and you have to make your own book.

“That sounds like homework, but it’s not,” responds presenter Jeroen Wollaars. According to him, the reader is gripped by the story from the first moment.

Daanje was already called the ‘dead painted winner’ prior to the ceremony. The writer previously said that this is a dubious honor. “In the past there have been many declared winners who ended up not winning.” That concern turned out to be unfounded.

Daanje already won the Boekenbon Literatuurprijs for her novel last fall. “Each individual chapter is like a gold nugget and together they form a literary tour de force,” said jury chairman Guy Verhofstadt when presenting the prize.

Daanje (57) from Groningen has been writing novels since the early 1990s, but only broke through in 2019 with her novel The Remembered Soldier. Like many of her other books, it was published by Passage, a small publishing house in Groningen.

The writer was trained as a mathematician and has also written film and TV scripts, including for the TV series Barslet’s Secrets. She does not like publicity and is considered a relative outsider in the Dutch literary world. About her aversion to public appearances, she told de Volkskrant last year: “I think that’s very bad. When I do it, it’s sometimes not too bad, but afterwards I think: what stupid things did I say?”

Due to all the ‘conditions’ surrounding her latest novel, Daanje has not yet started her next book. “But I intend to start after this. Sunday or something.”