The Bookspot Literatuurprijs (previously ECI Literatuurprijs, AKO Literatuurprijs and Generale Bank Literatuurprijs) is a prize for literature in the
Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
and
Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
. It is awarded to authors writing in
Dutch
Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
** Dutch people as an ethnic group ()
** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship ()
** Dutch language ()
* In specific terms, i ...
and amounts to 50,000. The ceremony is televised live each year. The prize was conceived in 1986 and inaugurated the following year with the aim to promote literature and increase the public's interest in books.
Name and sponsorship
The name of the prize has not been constant, reflecting the main sponsors. It was first prefixed with ''AKO'' after its sponsor-founder, the Amsterdamsche Kiosk Onderneming, a chain of over 100 bookstores and newsstands in the Netherlands. From 1997 through 1999 it was sponsored by Belgium's Generale Bank and was named accordingly – ''Generale Bank Literatuurprijs''. The bank was absorbed and the sponsorship presumably assumed by
Fortis Bank
BNP Paribas Fortis is an international bank based in Belgium and a subsidiary of French banking group BNP Paribas. The bank was created in May 2009 after BNP Paribas acquired 75% of the Belgian Fortis Bank from the Federal Participation and Inve ...
in 1999, but the financing of the prize reverted to AKO before the 2000 award, so the name ''Fortis Literatuurprijs'' was never formally implemented. Beginning in 2015, AKO dropped sponsorship and the prize was sponsored by ECI, a book club and webshop. ECI changed its name in March 2018 to Bookspot, so the literary award had to change as well.
Selection procedure
The Bookspot Literatuurprijs is awarded by a five-member jury of Dutch and Belgian book critics, some of whom have served on it repeatedly. The sixth person, the head of the jury, changes every year and is usually a public figure, often a politician.
The nominations follow the system of a longlist, ''tiplijst'', of 25 preliminary nominees and a shortlist, ''toplijst'', of six finalists. In order to be considered for a given year, a book needs to be published before the first of July of the year in which the prize is to be awarded and after 30 June of the preceding year. The winner is usually announced later in the fall.
The Bookspot award comprehends the categories fiction and non-fiction. Additionally to the jury steered Bookspot Literatuurprijs (50.000 Euro) there is a separate BookSpot Lezersprijs which enables the readers' vote and grants 10.000 Euro to the winner. The process is well-elaborated: thirty books are selected by the general jury, two longlists of 15 books in fiction and non-fiction categories, published online annually any 4 September. Any reader can vote for his favorite books. The three most chosen books form the ''BookSpot Lezersprijs Top 3''. A separate BookSpot Lezersjury of fifty readers read those three books and elect the final Lezersprijs winner.
Geerten Meijsing
Geerten Jan Maria Meijsing (born 9 August 1950) is a Dutch writer, translator and novelist. He won the AKO Literatuurprijs in 1988 for his novel ''Veranderlijk en wisselvallig (Fickle and Changeable)'', and in 1999 the Golden Owl, Gouden Uil Lit ...
P. F. Thomése P. is an abbreviation or acronym that may refer to:
* Page (paper), where the abbreviation comes from Latin ''pagina''
* Paris Herbarium, at the ''Muséum national d'histoire naturelle''
* ''Pani'' (Polish), translating as Mrs.
* The ''Pacific Rep ...
- ''Zuidland''
* 1992 -
Margriet de Moor
Margaretha Maria Antonetta 'Margriet' de Moor (''née'' Neefjes; born 1941) is a Dutch pianist and writer of novels and essays. She won the AKO Literatuurprijs for her novel ''Eerst grijs dan wit dan blauw'' (1991).
Life and career
Margaretha M ...
- ''Eerst grijs dan wit dan blauw''
* 1993 -
Marcel Möring
Marcel Möring (born 5 September 1957, in Enschede
Enschede (; local ) is a list of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the province of Overijssel and the Twente region of the e ...
- ''Het grote verlangen''
* 1994 - Gerhard Durlacher - ''Quarantine''
* 1995 -
Connie Palmen
Aldegonda Petronella Huberta Maria "Connie" Palmen (born 25 November 1955) is a Dutch author.
Palmen debuted with the novel ''De wetten'' (1990), published in the United States as ''The Laws'' (1993), translated by Richard Huijing. ''The Laws'' ...
- ''De vriendschap''
* 1996 -
Frits van Oostrom
Frits van Oostrom (born 15 May 1953 in Utrecht, Netherlands) is university professor for the Humanities at Utrecht University. In 1999 he was a visiting professor at Harvard for the Erasmus Chair. From September 2004 to June 2005, he was a fellow ...
Karel Glastra van Loon
Karel may refer to:
People
* Karel (given name)
* Karel (surname)
* Charles Karel Bouley (born 1962), American talk radio personality known on air as Karel
* Christiaan Karel Appel (1921–2006), Dutch painter and sculptor
Business
* Karel Elec ...
- ''De passievrucht''
* 2000 -
Arnon Grunberg
Arnon Yasha Yves Grünberg (; born 22 February 1971) is a Dutch writer of novels, essays, and columns, as well as a journalist. He published some of his work under the heteronym Marek van der Jagt. He lives in New York. His work has been transl ...
-''Fantoompijn''
* 2001 -
Jeroen Brouwers
Jeroen Godfried Marie Brouwers (30 April 1940 – 11 May 2022) was a Dutch writer.
From 1964 to 1976 Brouwers worked as an editor at Manteau publishers in Brussels. In 1964 he made his literary debut with ''Het mes op de keel'' (''The Knife t ...
Dik van der Meulen
Dik or DIK may refer to:
People Surname
* Carla Dik-Faber (born 1971), Dutch art historian and politician
* Natalia Dik (born 1961), Russian painter
* Simon C. Dik (1940–1995), Dutch linguist
* Wim Dik (born 1939), former head of Royal PTT Ned ...
- ''Multatuli: Leven en werk van Eduard Douwes Dekker''
* 2004 -
Arnon Grunberg
Arnon Yasha Yves Grünberg (; born 22 February 1971) is a Dutch writer of novels, essays, and columns, as well as a journalist. He published some of his work under the heteronym Marek van der Jagt. He lives in New York. His work has been transl ...
- ''
The Asylum Seeker
''The Asylum Seeker'' () is a novel by Dutch author Arnon Grunberg. Published in 2003, the novel won the AKO Literatuurprijs and Ferdinand Bordewijk Prijs in 2004, and has been reprinted more than fourteen times. The jury rapport for the AKO Lite ...
'' (''De asielzoeker'')
* 2005 -
Jan Siebelink
Jan Geurt Siebelink (born 13 February 1938 in Velp, Gelderland) is a Dutch author. In 2005, he wrote the novel ''Knielen op een bed violen'' (literally ', translated into English as ''In my father's garden'') that sold over 700,000 copies. In 19 ...
- ''Knielen op een bed violen''
* 2006 -
Hans Münstermann
Hans Münstermann (born 1947 in Arnhem) is a Dutch novelist, writer of almost a dozen novels. About half of them form a generational novel sequence that follows the life of a baby boomer named Andreas Klein, the son of a Dutch mother and a German ...
Doeschka Meijsing
Maria Johanna Meijsing (21 October 1947 – 30 January 2012) was a Dutch novelist. She won the AKO Literatuurprijs in 2000 for her novel '' De tweede man'', and in 2008 the Ferdinand Bordewijk Prijs for her novel '' Over de liefde''. Doeschka Mei ...
- ''Over de liefde''
* 2009 -
Erwin Mortier
Erwin Mortier (born 28 November 1965) is a Dutch-language Belgian author. Spending his youth in Hansbeke, he later moved to nearby Ghent, where he became city poet (2005–2006).
He wrote as a columnist for newspapers like '' De Morgen'' and p ...
Marente de Moor
Marente de Moor (; born 1972) is a Dutch novelist and columnist. She published five novels and two collections of short stories. She won the AKO Literatuurprijs (2011) and the European Union Prize for Literature (2014) for her novel ''De Nederla ...
- ''De Nederlandse maagd''
* 2012 -
Peter Terrin
Peter Terrin (born 3 October 1968) is a Belgian novelist, and a winner of the European Union Prize for Literature. He is the author of several novels and two collections of short stories.
Biography
Terrin's first novel, ''Kras'' ("Scratch") was pu ...
Jeroen Brouwers
Jeroen Godfried Marie Brouwers (30 April 1940 – 11 May 2022) was a Dutch writer.
From 1964 to 1976 Brouwers worked as an editor at Manteau publishers in Brussels. In 1964 he made his literary debut with ''Het mes op de keel'' (''The Knife t ...
Tommy Wieringa
Tommy Wieringa (born 20 May 1967) is a Dutch writer.Tommy Wieringa
* 2019 - Wessel te Gussinklo - ''De hoogstapelaar'' (fiction); Sjeng Scheijen - ''De avant-gardisten. De Russische Revolutie in de kunst, 1917-1935'' (non-fiction)
* 2020 -
Oek de Jong
Oebele Klaas Anne (Oek) de Jong (born 4 October 1952 in Breda) is a Dutch novelist.
He debuted in 1976 with ''De hemelvaart van Massimo'', a collection of short stories for which he received the Reina Prinsen Geerligsprijs.
In 1980 he won th ...
Esther Gerritsen
Esther (; ), originally Hadassah (; ), is the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible. According to the biblical narrative, which is set in the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian king Ahasuerus falls in love with Esther and mar ...