Debut Prize 'Het Liegend Konijn' For Naomi Perquin
The first Debut Prize ‘Het Liegend Konijn’ (The Lying Rabbit) will be awarded to Ester Naomi Perquin (b. 1980) for her collection Servetten halfstok (Napkins Half-Mast, published by G.A. van Oorschot). The jury was very enthusiastic about this debut.
‘The quality of her verse technique is very high and maintained. There is room for everything in life: light-weight, funny but is not at all superficial. Her subjects vary from young girls in the sun to reincarnation, from mundane home scenes to the dreams of architects.
Perquin’s poetry embraces the whole world and attempts to get to grips with it. She asks questions and reflects - every poem has a sense of wonder. Her verse makes the reader stop and think: the hooks of her formulations fix themselves in your unwary memory. That’s how they work, these poems: they settle permanently in your bag, your head, your heart. A stunning debut.’
The biannual Debut Prize ‘Het vliegend konijn’ (The Lying Rabbit) consists of translations of the winning collection into the languages of our geographical neighbours: French, English and German. The Flemish-Dutch publishing house deBuren will publish a collection with the translation of one poem from the winning debut collection into all twenty-three official languages of the European Union. The laureate will also receive a sum of 2,500 euros and a series of new poems will be published in literary magazine Het Liegend Konijn.
Ester Naomi Perquin (foto Rutger Mullmeister)