Susan Smit (b. 1974) is a writer and columnist. She made her debut in 2001 with Heks (Witch). To date she has nineteen successful novels to her name, including the bestsellers Vloed (Flood), Gisèle and Tropenbruid (Bride of the Tropics). She spent some time studying the history of witchcraft, which Smit considers to be a spiritual practice and an ancient nature religion.
(Lebowski, 2021, 255 pagina's)
Women who are unafraid to stand up for themselves and others often get the epithet ‘witch’ hurled at them. In online discourse, you see it all the time in reference to strong women like Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris or Sigrid Kaag and Khadija Arib here in the Netherlands. In her novel The Last Witch Hunt, based on historical research, Susan Smit shows how this kind of nasty talk can have serious consequences. In July 1674, soldiers raid the home of 74-year-old Entgen Luijten. She is taken to the castle in Limbricht, a town in the southernmost part of the Netherlands, and locked in a dungeon where she is told that, based on a number of incidents, she is being accused of witchcraft or black…
