Gerda Blees

Gerda Blees is a Dutch author and poet. She taught at various universities for several years while doing linguistic research on Dutch-German lingua receptiva—conversations in which each person speaks their own language. We Are Light, Gerda’s debut novel, won the EU Literature Prize as well as the prestigious Dutch Booksellers Award in 2021. It was also shortlisted for the Libris Literature Award. It is published in English by World Editions in August 2023. She recently completed a bachelor’s degree in fine arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam.

We Are Light is translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison, a renowned Amsterdam-based translator and author. Her translation of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s novel The Discomfort of Evening was awarded the International Booker Prize.

Gerda’s attendance at West Cork Literary Festival is supported by the Nederlands Letterenfonds / Dutch Foundation for Literature as part of their New Dutch Writing programme