RomanReuzen publication: against declining reading
The RomanReuzen exhibition at Museum Hilversum is on view until June 15, 2025. Simultaneously, a sheet of 10 different stamps featuring ten contemporary writers is being issued. On sale from April 22, 2025. RomanReuzen is part of a reading promotion project of the same name aimed at combating declining reading habits. Do you have children who only read social media and hardly any books, newspapers, or magazines? At the beginning of the blog, I requested that PostNL stop embargoing news reports regarding stamp issues if they are not honored by others. That applies to this issue.
PostNL stamp issue embargo (stop it!)
PostNL has imposed an embargo on news reports and the sheet of these stamp issues until April 22, 2025. The RomanReuzen issue will go on sale starting this coming April 22. But what is the value of this embargo if it is trampled upon by others who publish the stamps? Absolutely nothing. On Friday, April 18, the VIP meeting took place at Museum Hilversum, where the stamps were presented at 16:30 PM to the organizers of the RomanReuzen project and to the invited guests. From that moment on, everyone knew the design of these stamps. In the Mezza supplement of the Saturday newspaper AD (April 19, circulation approximately 300.000 copies), the RomanReuzen project was published extensively on four pages, featuring the 10 stamps in mega format on these four pages. See the AD website or Mezza in the library: https://www.ad.nl/mezza/zo-belangrijk-zijn-romans-een-schrijfster-vertelde-dat-ze-door-een-boek-relatie-verbrak~ad678b72/ Furthermore, RomanReuzen has its own website where an explanation is provided about the RomanReuzen school project. And, not entirely unimportant, a Dutch stamp dealer has already displayed the sheet and the FDC on his site. So much for an embargo until April 22, 2025?
Message to PostNL: stop the embargo on news reports regarding stamp issues. It happens with this issue and annually with the Kinderpostzegels. Secrecy that has no value for most people and philatelists. In other countries such as the USA, Germany, Belgium, and France, the designs of stamps yet to be released are published in advance. In Belgium, the entire issuance program with designs for the following year (from January through December) is published in December.
Roman Giants
From April 18, 2025, to June 15, 2025, at Museum Hilversum: Portraits of leading Dutch writers. Great writers inspire new generations of readers. Fewer and fewer people, particularly young people, read books. RomanReuzen aims to change that. This nationwide reading promotion project is an initiative of journalist and programme maker Frénk van der Linden and photographer Fjodor Buis. RomanReuzen focuses on inspiring new generations of readers through powerful portraits, in-depth interviews, and encounters with writers. The RomanReuzen exhibition at Museum Hilversum is part of this broader initiative. With this exhibition, creators Fjodor Buis and Frénk van der Linden showcase fifty prominent Dutch novelists through compelling portraits and in-depth interviews in podcast form. They capture not only the faces but also the sources of inspiration of these writers. Each portrait consists of a studio photograph and a recording at a location of special significance to the writer.
RomanReuzen organizes author visits for schools and libraries, during which students interview an author after reading their book. Libraries and schools can organize a visit from one of the participating authors together through RomanReuzen. During the visit, the author is interviewed for two one-hour sessions by a school class that has read a book by this author prior to the visit. To properly prepare for the visit, a ready-made lesson package has been created for teachers. The students will interview the author themselves. They are guided in this by journalist Frénk van der Linden and/or one of the young people on the youth council.
Books by the 10 authors of RomanReuzen
I have personally selected a number of (well-known) book titles from the 10 authors in the sheet and displayed them in the frame of the personalized stamps. Happy reading if you buy the actual books or borrow them from the library.Abdelkader Benali (1975) was born in Morocco and came to Rotterdam at the age of four. Later, he moved to Amsterdam. In addition to novels and plays, Benali writes articles and reviews for publications including Algemeen Dagblad, de Groene Amsterdammer, Esquire, de Volkskrant, Passionate Magazine, and Vrij Nederland. He writes biweekly columns for de Kanttekening and Trouw. For his debut novel, Bruiloft aan zee, he was nominated for the Libris Literature Prize in 1997, which he received in 2003 for his second novel. The long-awaited.
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[/one_half_last] Bregje Hofstede (1988) is a Dutch feminist[2] journalist, columnist, writer and activist. Her debut novel The sky above Paris has been translated into German and Danish. He was nominated for, among others, the Libris Literature Prize, the Anton Wachter Prize, and the Golden Book Owl. Tommy David Wieringa (1967) is a Dutch writer. His debut novel, *Dormantique's manco*, was published in 1995. Following the publication of this and two other novels, his breakthrough to a wider audience came in 2005 with the coming-of-age novel. Joe SpeedboatThis marked his breakthrough with the general public. Joe Speedboot was nominated for the AKO Literature Prize, the Golden Owl, the Libris Literature Prize, the Gerard Walschap Literature Prize, the NS Public Prize, and the Prize for the Most Beautiful Book Cover.
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Mensje Francina van der Steen (1946) is a Dutch writer who publishes under the name Mensje van Keulen (named after the surname of her former husband, Lon van Keulen). Van Keulen debuted with the highly acclaimed novel Bleeker's SummerA special reissue was released as part of the VARA television program Büch's Boeken. The interview with presenter Boudewijn Büch can be read from page 105 to 111. Previously, from 1970 to 1973, she was an editor of the student weekly Propria Cures, where she wrote poems under the pseudonym Josien Meloen—in addition to stories. Adriaan van Dis (1946) is a Dutch novelist and essayist. In 2015, he received the Constantijn Huygens Prize for his entire oeuvre and the Libris Literature Prize for his autobiographical novel. I will be backHis equally autobiographical novel Indische duinen was awarded the Golden Owl in 1995. The novel Naar zachtheid en een warm omhelzen earned him the NS Public Prize in 2024.
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Hossein Sadjadi Qaemmaqami Farahani (1954), better known under the pseudonym Kader Abdolah, is a Persian-Dutch writer. He settled in the Netherlands in 1988. The house of the mosque was voted the second best Dutch book during the 2007 Book Week, after Harry Mulisch's *De ontdekking van de hemel*. The novel tells the story of a crucial period in Iranian history, in which Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi is overthrown and Ayatollah Khomeini seizes power. According to Abdolah, the novel clarifies much about the development of radical Islam as it manifests itself in many countries today. Kader Abdolah calls the book the crowning achievement of his work. Abdolah's friend and visual artist Masoud Gharibi illustrated the book in an Oriental style. Jessica Durlacher (1961) is a Dutch writer. In 2011, Durlacher won the Opzij Literature Prize for the book *De held*. Both her debut novel *Het Geweten* and The daughter are also referred to as 'second-generation novels': in both books, the main characters are children of Dutch parents who survived the concentration camps during the Second World War; they themselves did not experience the war and the occupation. For her debut novel, Durlacher received the Debutants Prize and the Golden Donkey Ear. The German translation was also nominated for the Nordrhein/Westfalen Literature Prize. Her novel *De dochter* was nominated for the Nordrhein/Westfalen Literature Prize and the NS Public Prize.
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Manon Uphoff (1962) is a Dutch writer, screenwriter, and visual artist. She made her debut in 1995 with the short story collection *Begeerte*, which was nominated for the AKO Literature Prize, the Anton Wachter Prize, and the ECI Prize, and the title story was awarded the Rabobank Spring Prize for Literature. Her first novel *Gemis* (1997) was nominated for the Libris Literature Prize. Her most recent book, Falling is like flying (2019), was named the best Dutch-language novel of 2019 by NRC Handelsblad and Humo, while the novel was named the best book of 2019 by bookstore Athenaeum in the year-end review of newspapers and magazines. Astrid Heligonda Roemer (1947) is a Dutch writer of Surinamese descent. In 2016 she received the PC Hooft Prize, and in 2021 she was awarded the Prize for Dutch Literature. In addition to African roots, Roemer claims to have Scottish ancestors in the male line on both her mother's and her father's sides. In 1966 she left for the Netherlands, but she returned to her native country to work there as a teacher. In 1975 she settled in the Netherlands again. From 2006 to 2009 she lived in her native country once more. In 1988 came The trail of the jackal out. The book is set in The Hague with Suriname in the background. Themes include the relationship between men and women, ethnic differences, and being an outsider.
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Peter Buwalda (1971) is a Dutch writer and columnist. Buwalda was previously a journalist and editor at various publishing houses. The writer, who grew up in Blerick, was a co-founder of the magazine Wah-Wah. In addition, he wrote essays and stories for literary magazines such as Bunker Hill, De Gids, Hollands Maandblad, and Vrij Nederland. In 1996—at the time editor of the Kafka section—he attracted attention with the essay *Een omleiding doorgaan kuilen* in *De Gids* about Bruno Schulz, Franz Kafka, and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. In September 2010, he made his debut with the novel Bonita AvenueOn September 22, 2011, he won the Academica Debutants Prize. On October 30, 2011, he won the Selexyz Debut Prize. He also won the Tzumprize 2011 and the Anton Wachter Prize for the best debut novel in 2012. Bonita Avenue was translated into German and French (2013), English, Hungarian, and Icelandic (2014), and into Portuguese and Danish (2016). In March 2019, nine years after his debut, he released his second novel, Otmars zonen. In this novel, he returns to the setting of his debut, Bonita Avenue: Enschede and the university campus.
Regarding the embargo: the stamps released on May 9, 2025, are already listed on the Importa website under 2025 supplements.
'@ Willem: Yes, I saw it. Nice piece of paper. If you want to see the Dorestad Fibula in real life, you really should stop by the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. Perhaps combine it with a nice city walk.