Two prizes in a row this week for Dutch non-fiction author Frank Westerman! His book Een woord, een woord received both the Brusseprijs for the best journalistic book of the year and the Bob den Uyl-prijs for the best travel story of the year.
For the Brusseprijs, Westerman received a prize of € 10.000. The jury, consisting of Frits of Exter, Hassan Bahara and Janny Groen, called the book a “bold business, in which journalist and man complement each other well. The story may not provide easy conclusions, but adds something essential to the debate.”
For the second prize, the Bob den Uyl-prijs, he received a sum of €7,500. Laura Broekhuysen, Jan Brokken, Robert Dulmers, Maarten van Riel and Anton Stolwijk were also nominated. In addition to chairman Lennart van der Meulen, the jury consisted of Naeeda Aurangzeb, Mariska van Beijnum, Mathijs Deen and Alexander Reeuwijk.
In Een woord, een woord (A Word, A Word), Frank Westerman links his own experiences of hostage situations with the latest ideas as to how best to react to terror. It resulted in a gripping reportage about one of the stickiest problems of our time.
Een woord, een woord has been translated into German (by Gerd Busseand Ulrich Faure for Christoph Links Verlag), French and Italian translations are on the way at Éditions Christian Bourgois and Iperborea Casa Editrice (translation Franco Paris).
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