Inktaap to Dutch writer Martin Michael Driessen for ‘Rivers’

The 63-year-old Dutch writer Martin Michael Driessen has the Inktaap 2018 won. He received the literary prize Tuesday awarded in Rotterdam for his short story ‘the Rivers’.

The Inktaap is the young person’s prize of the Dutch-speaking literature, also awarded by the Nederlandse Taalunie. Students from the Netherlands read the winning titles of the ECI literature prize, the Libris Literature Prize and the Fintro literature prize, and choose from there their own winner. Nine hundred students brought this time their vote.

“Rivers” contains three novellas in which rivers play an important role in the lives of the characters. Discussed houtvlotters on the Main and the Rhine, a neighbourly dispute around a Breton brook and an alcoholic actor on the Aisne in the Ardennes. The book won in 2016, all of the ECI literature prize.

The literary young person’s prize since 2002 have been awarded. Previously got Harry Mulisch, A. F. Th. van der Heijden, Tommy Wieringa, Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer and Connie Palmen the Inktaap. Flemish winners are, among others, Stefan Hertmans, Dimitri Verhulst, Tom Lanoye.