The BookSpot Gouden Strop (Golden Noose) 2018 has been awarded to Willem Asman for his book Enter (Ambo | Anthos) by jury chairman Anniko van Santen. The Shadow Prize went to Eva Keuris for her debut Over het spoor. Willem Asman wrote Enter with a scholarship from the Dutch Foundation for Literature. Thanks to the new sponsor BookSpot, the Gouden Strop is worth an amount of € 20,000 this year.
The jury praised the web of plot lines in Enter: “Asman writes at a pace that lets you gasp for breath, but in a style and design that makes it almost impossible to put the book aside. He has a touch of refined humour. With just a few spot-on sentences, Asman knows how to evoke well-balanced characters and to conjure up atmospheres. The loneliness of the protagonist is almost suffocatingly realistic.”
Enter is the first part of the Rebound-trilogy by Willem Asman; parts II & III, Error and Exit have been published recently by Ambo Anthos.
In addition to chair Anniko van Santen, the jury of the BookSpot Gouden Strop consisted of Jos van Cann (reviewer VN’s Detective & Thrillergids, thrillerboek.nl and Hebban.nl), Marian van Leth (former director BiblioNu Venray / Horst), Els Roes (Thrillers & Zo, reviewer VN’s Detective & Thrillergids) and Herma Schipperheijn (Bookstore Augustinus, Nijmegen).
The award ceremony was the kick-off for the thriller campaign (Spannende Boeken Weken), which runs until 24 June in bookstores throughout the Netherlands.
More information on Willem Asman may be found in our Authors database.
