Two South African writers needed to share a writers’ residency with two Belgian writers

The all-expenses-paid Jakes Gerwel Foundation / Passa Porta’s Dialogue Programme for Writers from the Low Countries and South Africa takes place at foundation’s Paulet House in Somerset East from 27 February to 16 March 2023

If you would like to be part of this exciting collaboration, please send your submissions to Theo Kemp, the executive director of the Jakes Gerwel Foundation, at theo@jgf.org.za by 16 January 2023.

The two successful local writers will share the Dialogue programme for writers from the Low Countries and South Africa 2023 residency with Belgian writers Tom Naegels and Neske Beks.

Neske Beks (1972) is a writer and artist who skilfully combines a multitude of art forms. Her debut film Eigen Volk (2011) weaves together elements of theatre, the spoken word, singing, fiction and non-fiction into a striking and successful whole. In 2014 she made her debut with De Kleenex Kronieken, a humorous chronicle of events within a family and also within a town. Since then she has published texts in various collections, among which Zwart (2018). Her children’s book Sala en Monk – Ons Samen was published by Querido in 2020 and, in 2021, her collection of essays with the title Echo. She sits on various literary, film and theatre juries and has already won prizes internationally for her theatre and film work. She is the founder and director of Alphabet Street, a guild for black writers, as well of Tank, an editorial and think tank of colour. In 2022 she was inaugurated as a lifetime member of the Academy of Art of the Netherlands. She is currently working on various projects in which she combines her art with healing.
During her residency at Paulet House, she will work on her newest novel and a multidisciplinary project about cultural appropriation.

Tom Naegels (1975) is a writer and journalist whose journalistic contributions, columns and opinion pieces regularly appear in De Standaard. Between 2011 and 2016 he was also the news ombudsman. He was first noticed on the literary scene in 1997 when his short story collection Het heelal in! Vijf stukjes van de kosmos appeared. In 2005 he published his first novel Los, which is both a love story and a portrait of the city of Antwerp’s social woes. The novel has been awarded the Seghers Literature Prize and was on the longlist for the Libris Literature Prize in 2006. Jan Verheyen adapted the book into a film in 2008. Six years’ research has resulted in his publication in 2021 of Nieuw België, een migratiegeschiedenis about the Belgian migration policies after the Second World War. For this he was awarded the very first ‘Most important book of the year’ prize for non-fiction in Belgium.
During his residency at Paulet House, he will be working on his next historical book.