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Netherlands · Since 1994 · For books in Dutch
Awarded each May by the Stichting Literatuur Prijs, named after its sponsor, the Libris bookshops, to the best Dutch-language literary fiction book of the previous year, by writers from the Netherlands and Flanders alike. A jury picks six books for the shortlist; until 2010 story collections and a graphic novel were eligible too, since 2011 only novels.
Modelled on Britain's Booker Prize, the prize was first awarded in 1994. Publishers submit books, and a five-member jury appointed by the foundation draws up a longlist of 18 titles and then the shortlist of six, announced in March; the winner is named in mid-May. In 2010 the foundation limited the prize to literary novels to cut the number of entries. The winner receives 50,000 euros and, since 2015, a bronze medal designed by Irma Boom; each shortlisted author receives 2,500 euros. The ceremony was long a dinner at the Amstel Hotel in Amsterdam and has been held at Felix Meritis since 2021. Winners include Hugo Claus, Harry Mulisch and Arnon Grunberg. Thomas Rosenboom and Rob van Essen have each won twice. Most winners have been Dutch men; nearly a fifth have been Belgian.
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Libris 2024 · Shortlist
Luister
Sacha Bronwasser · 55 when first published
Novel · 240 pages · Coming of age
AI-generated summary:In 1989 Marie, a young Dutch woman, moves to Paris to look after the children of a wealthy French family whose father has an odd psychic affliction. A dark episode from her student days lies behind her.
Libris 2023 · Winner
Het lied van ooievaar en dromedaris
Anjet Daanje · 57 when first published
Novel · 736 pages · Historical
AI-generated summary:Eliza May Drayden, an author drawn after Emily Brontë, survives her early death through her single novel and through the people it touches, in eleven stories reaching from Victorian Yorkshire to present-day Groningen.
Libris 2023 · Shortlist
Waarachtige beschrijvingen uit de permafrost
Donald Niedekker · 59 when first published
Novel · 196 pages · Historical
AI-generated summary:A poet who died on Nova Zembla in 1597, during Willem Barentsz's expedition, wakes in his icy grave 425 years later, as the warming climate thaws the permafrost, and at last delivers his account.
Libris 2021 · Shortlist
Wij zijn licht
Gerda Blees · 35 when first published
Novel · 240 pages · Crime
AI-generated summary:A woman lies starved to death in the living room of a commune whose members tried to live on light and air. The house, the night, the bread they refused and other things tell what happened.
Libris 2021 · Shortlist
Mijn lieve gunsteling
Lucas Rijneveld · 29 when first published
Novel · 344 pages
AI-generated summary:During one sweltering summer in the countryside, a vet in his late forties and the fourteen-year-old girl whose father's cows he treats are drawn to each other. He tells the story, speaking to her.
Libris 2021 · Shortlist
Confrontaties
Simone Atangana Bekono · 29 when first published
Novel · 223 pages · Coming of age
AI-generated summary:Sixteen-year-old Salomé is held in a juvenile prison for badly beating two classmates who had long tormented her with racist abuse. She has no regrets, and tries to work out how it came to this.
Libris 2020 · Shortlist
Vallen is als vliegen
Manon Uphoff · 57 when first published
Novel · 192 pages · Family, Autofiction
AI-generated summary:When her sister, sixteen years older and once her stand-in mother, falls down a staircase and dies, starved and alone, a writer's fury ignites: she must finally tell what her family kept silent for decades.
Libris 2020 · Shortlist
Liefde, als dat het is
Marijke Schermer · 44 when first published
Novel · 312 pages · Love, Family
AI-generated summary:After twenty-five years of marriage Terri walks out, with a lover and above all in search of herself. Her steady, kind husband David is left at home with their two teenage girls.
Libris 2019 · Shortlist
Grand Hotel Europa
Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer · 50 when first published
Novel · 551 pages · Love
AI-generated summary:A writer moves into the illustrious but decaying Grand Hotel Europa to work out what went wrong with Clio, the art historian he fell for in Genoa and lived with in Venice.
Libris 2018 · Shortlist
En we noemen hem
Marjolijn van Heemstra · 36 when first published
Novel · 208 pages · Autofiction, Family, War
AI-generated summary:At eighteen Marjolijn promised to name her first son after a great-uncle the family calls a resistance hero; pregnant years later, she sets out to learn who he really was.
Libris 2018 · Shortlist
De pelikaan
Martin Michael Driessen · 63 when first published
Novel · 228 pages · Satire
AI-generated summary:In a drowsy Adriatic town in communist Yugoslavia, postman Andrej photographs Josip, who runs the cable railway up the hill, with his mistress, and starts to blackmail him.
Libris 2018 · Shortlist
De heilige Rita
Tommy Wieringa · 50 when first published
Novel · 256 pages · Family, Migration
AI-generated summary:For almost fifty years Paul Krüzen has lived with his father on a ghostly old farm outside Mariënveen, a forgotten village on the German border; once his father cared for him, now he cares for his father.
Libris 2017 · Winner
De tolk van Java
Alfred Birney · 65 when first published
Novel · 542 pages · War, Family, Historical
AI-generated summary:A son tries to understand his cruel father, a former interpreter in the colonial army, whose memories of the bloody years after 1945 in the Dutch East Indies still haunt the family.
Libris 2017 · Shortlist
Wil
Jeroen Olyslaegers · 49 when first published
Novel · 349 pages · War, Historical
AI-generated summary:In occupied Antwerp, Wilfried Wils, who sees himself as a poet in the making, has to get by as an auxiliary policeman while the hunt for the city's Jews goes on.
Libris 2017 · Shortlist
Het smelt
Lize Spit · 28 when first published
Novel · 410 pages · Coming of age
AI-generated summary:Thirteen years after a scorching summer that spun out of control, Eva drives back to Bovenmeer, the small Flemish village where she grew up, with a block of ice in the boot.
Libris 2016 · Winner
Jij zegt het
Connie Palmen · 60 when first published
Novel · 206 pages · Love
AI-generated summary:Decades after Sylvia Plath's suicide, the poet Ted Hughes, long cast as the brute who drove her to it, breaks his silence and tells the story of their marriage in his own words.
Libris 2016 · Shortlist
Muidhond
Inge Schilperoord · 42 when first published
Novel · 187 pages
AI-generated summary:Released from a secure institution for lack of evidence, Jonathan moves in with his lonely old mother in a little house in the dunes, determined to become a better man.
Libris 2015 · Shortlist
Roxy
Esther Gerritsen · 42 when first published
Novel · 192 pages · Family
AI-generated summary:Two police officers come to tell Roxy, twenty-seven, that her husband has died in a car crash with his young intern, both of them naked. She wants no comfort, only an enemy.
Libris 2015 · Shortlist
De consequenties
Niña Weijers · 27 when first published
Novel · 298 pages
AI-generated summary:Born nearly four months early and barely expected to live, Minnie Panis has become a celebrated conceptual artist who uses her own life as material, and is about to attempt her boldest experiment.
Libris 2015 · Shortlist
Monte Carlo
Peter Terrin · 46 when first published
Novel · 173 pages
AI-generated summary:Monaco, May 1968: moments before the Grand Prix, Jack Preston, a modest Lotus mechanic, pulls a young film star from a blaze in the pits and is badly burned.
Libris 2014 · Winner
La Superba
Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer · 45 when first published
Novel · 418 pages · Migration, Love
AI-generated summary:Leonardo, a Dutch writer living in Genoa, sends notes about the city and its people to a friend back home, planning to turn them into a novel one day, while warning that he has made Genoa up.
Libris 2014 · Shortlist
Oorlog en terpentijn
Stefan Hertmans · 62 when first published
Novel · 304 pages · War, Family, Historical
AI-generated summary:Before he died, Urbain Martien left his grandson two notebooks recording his life. Thirty years later the grandson, a writer, reconstructs it: a poor childhood in Ghent, the trenches of the First World War, a dream of painting.
Libris 2014 · Shortlist
Gelukkige slaven
Tom Lanoye · 55 when first published
Novel · 288 pages · Satire
AI-generated summary:Two Belgians who share the name Tony Hanssen try to get out of trouble on different continents, one in a South African game reserve, the other in a squeaky hotel bed in Buenos Aires.
Libris 2013 · Winner
Dit zijn de namen
Tommy Wieringa · 45 when first published
Novel · 320 pages · Migration
AI-generated summary:A band of nameless refugees, cheated by people smugglers, wanders across the steppe for months. Meanwhile Pontus Beg, police chief of a decaying border town, digs into his roots and longs to be a Jew.
Libris 2013 · Shortlist
Dorst
Esther Gerritsen · 40 when first published
Novel · 192 pages · Family
AI-generated summary:Elisabeth, who never was much of a mother, tells her daughter Coco almost in passing that she has cancer and may die. Coco, whose studies and love life have stalled, decides she must stand by her.
Libris 2012 · Winner
Tonio
A.F.Th. van der Heijden · 60 when first published
Novel · 535 pages · Autofiction, Family
AI-generated summary:Early on Whit Sunday, police wake a writer and his wife in Amsterdam: their only son, aged twenty-one, has been hit by a car. In the months after his death the father tries to reconstruct his last hours.
Libris 2011 · Shortlist
Tikkop
Adriaan van Dis · 64 when first published
Novel · 223 pages · Politics
AI-generated summary:Forty years after they resisted apartheid together, Mulder, a Dutchman living in Paris, meets his old comrade Donald, a white South African, and accepts his invitation to see the new South Africa for himself.
Libris 2011 · Shortlist
De omweg
Gerbrand Bakker · 48 when first published
Novel · 230 pages
AI-generated summary:A Dutch lecturer who has abandoned her academic job, her marriage and a thesis on Emily Dickinson withdraws to a remote house in a cold, autumnal corner of Wales.
Libris 2011 · Shortlist
Bonita Avenue
Peter Buwalda · 39 when first published
Novel · 538 pages · Family
AI-generated summary:Siem, a former judo champion and gifted mathematician, has risen to head a university in Twente. His career thrives, but in 2000, the year of the Enschede fireworks disaster, his family falls apart.
Libris 2010 · Shortlist
De bewaker
Peter Terrin · 41 when first published
Novel · 242 pages · Speculative
AI-generated summary:Two guards, Harry and Michel, watch around the clock over the only entrance to a tower of luxury flats for the super-rich, deep in its underground car park. Then nearly all the residents leave, and nobody tells them why.
Libris 2010 · Shortlist
Sprakeloos
Tom Lanoye · 51 when first published
Novel · 384 pages · Autofiction, Family
AI-generated summary:After a stroke, a Flemish butcher's wife and flamboyant amateur actress loses her power of speech and slowly declines. Her son, a writer, delays and doubts before he starts to build her a monument in words.
Libris 2009 · Shortlist
Contrapunt
Anna Enquist · 63 when first published
Novel · 188 pages · Family
AI-generated summary:A woman, never given a name, works through Bach's Goldberg Variations at the piano, keeping notes, in an effort to reach again the daughter she has lost.
Libris 2008 · Shortlist
De literaire kring
Maxim Februari · 44 when first published
Novel · 308 pages · Politics
AI-generated summary:In a rich village of notables, Teresa Pellikaan, the carefree daughter of one of them, gradually learns that her father took part in an affair that caused great harm in distant countries.
Libris 2007 · Winner
Tirza
Arnon Grunberg · 35 when first published
Novel · 471 pages · Family
AI-generated summary:Jörgen Hofmeester throws a graduation party for his youngest daughter, playing the ideal host while his outwardly successful life comes apart behind the scenes.
Libris 2007 · Shortlist
Boven is het stil
Gerbrand Bakker · 44 when first published
Novel · 264 pages · Family
AI-generated summary:On a dairy farm between Purmerend and Monnickendam, the quiet, fiftyish Helmer cares for his dying father, whom he hates, years after his twin brother Henk drowned when a car went into the water.
Libris 2006 · Shortlist
De engelenmaker
Stefan Brijs · 36 when first published
Novel · 352 pages · Speculative, Family
AI-generated summary:In a superstitious village where three borders meet, a doctor who prizes science but nurses a secret quasi-religious ambition brings up three baby sons, triplets he has cloned from himself.
Libris 2006 · Shortlist
Joe Speedboot
Tommy Wieringa · 38 when first published
Novel · 319 pages · Coming of age
AI-generated summary:Left in a wheelchair with one good arm after a mowing accident at thirteen, Fransje Hermans chronicles his village and a boy newly arrived there, who builds bombs and a working plane.
Libris 2005 · Winner
Specht en zoon
Willem Jan Otten · 53 when first published
Novel · 183 pages
AI-generated summary:A fashionable young portrait painter is hired by a rich man to paint his son, who is already dead. The canvas on which the portrait takes shape tells the story.
Libris 2005 · Shortlist
De laatste dichters
Christine Otten · 43 when first published
Novel · 544 pages · Historical, Politics
AI-generated summary:Harlem, 1969: Malcolm X is dead and the Black Panthers are on the rise. A group of young Black poets, The Last Poets, chant furious verse over conga drums and invent an early form of rap.
Libris 2004 · Winner
Een schitterend gebrek
Arthur Japin · 47 when first published
Novel · 247 pages · Historical, Love
AI-generated summary:Disfigured by smallpox and veiled, Lucia, Casanova's first love, meets him again years later in an Amsterdam brothel; he does not recognise her and sets about seducing her, and she looks back on her life.
Libris 2002 · Shortlist
Siegfried
Harry Mulisch · 74 when first published
Novel · 180 pages · Historical
AI-generated summary:During a book tour in Vienna, the famous Dutch novelist Rudolf Herter dreams up a fresh way to fathom Hitler, until two elderly Austrians who once worked for the dictator come to him with a secret.
Libris 2002 · Shortlist
Kreutzersonate
Margriet de Moor · 60 when first published
Novel · 168 pages · Love
AI-generated summary:A blind music critic who has avoided love since a disastrous youthful affair is drawn to a violinist after a chance travel companion, a young musicologist, describes her and arranges their meeting.
Libris 2001 · Shortlist
Mijn tweede huid
Erwin Mortier · 35 when first published
Novel · 200 pages · Coming of age, Love
AI-generated summary:Anton, the only child of a close-knit Flemish family living by a dyke, sees his sheltered early years disturbed by a sudden death, a menacing cousin, school and a deepening bond with a boy in his class.
Libris 2000 · Shortlist
Marcel
Erwin Mortier · 34 when first published
Novel · 119 pages · Family, War
AI-generated summary:In rural Flanders a small boy in his grandparents' care slowly discovers the disgrace that has haunted his relatives since the occupation, and about Marcel, the great-uncle whose name he carries and who died fighting in Russia.
Libris 2000 · Shortlist
Tongkat
Peter Verhelst · 37 when first published
Short stories · 341 pages · Speculative, Politics
AI-generated summary:When Prometheus, a boy said to hold fire behind his teeth, dies at the hands of the police, an endless winter grips the country, the king disappears and a crumbling capital slides into revolution.