53 artists, 14 interviewers, 7 presenters, 3 interpreters, 2 European Literature Awards, 2 editions of Koffiedik, 7 translators, lots of distanced meters, face masks en cues later, the online edition proved to be more than just a laptop and Zoom connection. It was quite the challenge, but the enthusiasm and quality prevailed. We've witnessed memorable performances by Paul Mendez, Kassa Overall, Connie Palmen, Nana Adjoa, Antonio Scurati and more.

To all our viewers: Thank you so much for your kind words, social media posts and interesting questions via the chat. We'd also like to thank you for your generous donations. It's great to see that we're even receiving international support for the festival.

In the coming weeks, nearly all events will be available on the Crossing Border festival YouTube channel.

MORE THAN 30.000 VIRTUAL VISITORS IN 2020


The virtual events this year have proven to be a great succes. In april we quickly adapted to the new circumstances and switched to online events with authors such as Etgar Keret, Elif Shafak, Sandro Veronesi and Paolo Giordano. Including the festival, we've welcomed more than 30.000 unique visitors to these events, tuning in from more than 20 different countries. And the year isn't over yet.



FUNDING FROM THE HAGUE FOR CROSSING BORDER


Thanks to a radically different plan from the local council, Crossing Border has been given a place in the 'Haags Kunstenplan' after all. We would like to thank all council members who have fought for this plan. We'll keep the momentum going and will announce some important changed for the festival in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Next year, Crossing Border will be back, we'd love to see you then, hopefully in-person!


DIGITAAL CROSSING BORDER EEN SUCCES

Thank you! More than 30.000 online visitors in 2020. Read more about the possibilities to re-watch performances and about the cultural subsidy of The Hague.

SUCCESSFUL ONLINE EDITION CROSSING BORDER

International literature and music festival, The Hague

Den Haag

Crossing Border

Border Sessions

BorderKitchen

Platform for young translators and authors

The Chronicles

Poetry evenings organized by the Poezieboys and Crossing Border

PoezieBar

Informal network event of international book professionals

The Addict

This year’s Crossing Border poster was made by well-renowned artist Pjeroo Roobjee.

Pjeroo Roobjee (Ghent, Belgium. 7 February 1945) took painting, drawing and engraving courses at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in his hometown of Ghent and in the preparatory programme of the State Academy of Fine Arts (Rijksakademie) in Amsterdam.

Currently, he works as a painter, (graphic) artist, actor, speaker, writer, playwright, entertainer and singer.

His predominantly monumental canvases have travelled across the globe and were exhibited at major art shows, such as the biennials of São Paolo and Venice.
Both his visual and his literary endeavours have won several awards. He received many distinctions in the Prix de la Jeune Peinture Belge, he became a Leo J. Krijn Prize laureate for writing his debut novel ‘De nachtschrijver’ and he won the Eugène Baie Prize in 1984. He received the Louis Paul Boon Prize in 1994, the Ark Prize of the Free Word in 1998 and the Culture Prize from the City of Ghent in 2004. In 2018, he was awarded the Luc Bucquoye Prize by the Free University of Brussels for his literary oeuvre.

If you would like to receive a free copy of the poster, please e-mail your name and home address to 

. Please put 'Poster' in the subject line.


A life full of art

In the upcoming months we announce the authors and music acts that will take the stage in the festival week from 3 till 8 november.

The coming week we will announce a couple of remarkable festival authors we recommend for holiday reading. In September we will announce the festival locations and programme and start ticket sales.

Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 restrictions, the festival can not have the same size as previous years. Behind the scenes, we’ve been busy coming up with an alternative plan for the festival. Expect special Crossing Border programmes in an intimate setting.

Step by step towards this year's edition. Stay tuned!

Festival Update

Naturally, it’s still uncertain what the situation will be like in November, regarding festivals and larger events. We’re constantly evaluating and figuring out what the best plan is and how we can move forward. For now, the idea is that we create a safe indoor environment for everyone, where we can continue to celebrate great authors, musicians and other artists. Government guidelines will be leading in the decisions we make.

We’re working on an alternative festival plan. Smaller live experiences combined with live streaming in indoor venues. We will keep you posted about our plans and the measures we’ll be taking

We will announce the first artists of the Crossing Border Festival early September. Until then, please enjoy the online BorderKitchen events (see website) and other events such as Poeziebar XL in the Koninklijke Schouwburg and Spoken070.

Stay tuned and subscribe to our newsletter if you’d like to keep up to date!


Hopefully we’ll meet again in November!

Statement regarding Covid-19 and the Crossing Border Festival

COVID-19

We are very happy to announce that BorderKitchen online keeps on going strong and we will have regular live stream interviews, readings and (hopefully) never-before-seen improvisations with exceptional international authors. The first guest was none other than Israeli author Etgar Keret. Sandro Veronesi, Paolo Giordano, Elif Shafak, Judith Schalansky and Emily St. John Mandel also participated in these online sessions.

While the regular BorderKitchen sessions were not recorded, this is now the case. All recordings have been made available on the Crossing Border YouTube channel. Experiencing the event live is of course the best. This way, viewers also have the unique opportunity to ask questions that are answered live.

After a successful run in April and May with i.e. Elif Shafak, Emily St. John Mandel and Paolo Giordano, the live online BorderKitchen will continue in June! We’re proud to say that Nir Baram and Leïla Slimani will be our guests.

In March, Nir Baram was due to make his way to The Hague for a BorderKitchen in honour of his new book At Night's End. That couldn’t go ahead, but we’re happy to offer an online option now. Bestselling author Leïla Slimani will also take place on our digital BorderKitchen sofa. The author and human rights activist will be interviewed about her new book Mathilde, the first part of the The land of the others trilogy. The story is based on her family history and entered the French charts at number one.

On Wednesday 10 June there will be an online interview with Israeli bestselling author Nir Baram. He will be interviewed by Jasper Henderson. Viewers will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the interview.

Nir Baram is one of the most exciting voices of contemporary Israeli literature. He is actually somewhat of a superstar: his non-fiction appeared all across the globe. In these works he tirelessly describes how one lives in a country that is torn apart between two sides. For one year he travelled through the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This resulted in the international best-selling book A Land Without Borders.

In some ways, Baram’s work is a companion piece to that of Etgar Keret, Israel’s other star writer. But where Keret is a master of the slightly surreal, and mostly writes short stories, Baram has his feet firmly on the ground, and offers a more realistic approach. Both writers manage to paint a deeply human portrait of contemporary life in Israel and Palestine.

Baram’s new novel is called At Night’s End. It tells the story of Jonatan, a writer. One day he wakes up in a hotel room. He has no clue what has happened, or how he got there in the first place. To add insult to injury, people tell him that he has been telling the lie that his best friend Joel has died. Baram then takes the reader on a journey through Jonatan’s past. We learn of his friendship with Joel and of his upbringing in the city of Jerusalem. We meet his dysfunctional family. He constantly bickers with his older brother, and his mother gets terminally ill. At Night’s End is a parable that tells the tale of living in an extremely intense culture.

Nir Baram (1976) is one of the most well known writers of Israel. He published four novels and his nonfiction appeared in magazines and newspapers, like The New Yorker and NRC Handelsblad.

Tuesday the 16th of June, we’ll be welcoming bestselling author Leila Slimani (The Perfect Nanny, Adèle) for a free online BorderKitchen. She will be interviewed by Margot Dijkgraaf about her new book, Mathilde. At the end of the interview, viewers will be given the opportunity to ask questions to the author and human rights activist.

1946. The young, French, Mathilde falls head over heels for Amine, a Moroccan officer of the French army. They get married and leave for a secluded family farm, hours from Rabat. How can their love, which is constantly being tested, stand the test of time?

Mathilde is the first part of the ‘The Land of the Others’-trilogy. The story was based on her family history and entered the French bestseller charts at number one.

Leila Slimani (Morocco, 1981) is the bestselling author of The Perfect Nanny, winner of the Prix Goncourt, and Adèle, for which she won the La Mamounia Prize.

Sex and Lies, a bundle of true stories of women’s intimate lives in the Arab world, was nominated for the Prix Renaudot de l’essai.

A journalist and frequent commentator on women’s and human rights, she spearheaded a campaign–for which she won the Simone de Beauvoir Prize for women’s freedom–to help Moroccan women speak out, as self-declared outlaws, against their country’s “unfair and obsolete laws.” Slimani wants to contribute to the development of a free society with equal rights for men and women.

She is French president Emmanuel Macron’s personal representative for the promotion of the French language and culture. Born in Rabat, Morocco, in 1981, she now lives in Paris with her French husband and their two young children.

We welcome Nir Baram and Leïla Slimani at BorderKitchen

We’ve dug down deep into our archive and have found countless old and unused recordings that we’ll share with you all! We’re busy digitalizing the cassettes, CDs, Mindiscs, CD-roms and DVDs, so we can put them online. It’s a treasure full of recordings of Crossing Border, BorderKitchen and other events from the past like Het Voorwoord and The Music in My Head. So keep checking our website, newsletter and social media channels to stay updated!

We’ve dug down deep into our archive and have found countless old and unused recordings that we’ll share with you all!

SUCCESSFUL ONLINE EDITION CROSSING BORDER

Do 12 Nov

Megan Lloyd

Do 12 Nov

Latest news

A life full of art

Festival Update

COVID-19

BorderKitchen

The Vault

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