Maria van Daalen (born 8 July 1950) is a Dutch poet and writer. Maria van Daalen is a pseudonym of Maria Machelina de Rooij. She was born in

Voorburg Voorburg () is a town and former municipality in the west part of the province of South Holland, Netherlands. Together with the town Leidschendam and the village Stompwijk, it merged into the municipality of Leidschendam-Voorburg in 2002. Sit ...

and studied at the

VU University Amsterdam The (abbreviated as ''VU Amsterdam'' or simply ''VU'' when in context) is a public research university in Amsterdam, Netherlands, founded in 1880. The VU Amsterdam is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the othe ...

and at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

, where she also took part in the

International Writing Program The International Writing Program (IWP) is a writing residency for international artists in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Since 2014, the program offers online courses to many writers and poets around the world. Since its inception in 1967, the I ...

. She has taught at the Schrijversvakschool in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

. She is also an expert on the subject of Vodou and, in 2007, was initiated as a Mambo Asogwe in

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

. She was an advisor for an exhibit of Vodou art objects at the

Royal Tropical Institute KIT, formerly the Royal Tropical Institute (Dutch: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen), is an applied knowledge institute located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It is an independent centre of expertise, education, intercultural cooperation and hospi ...

in Amsterdam. Van Daalen published her first poetry collection ''Raveslag'' (The Beat of the Raven’s Wing) in 1987; it was shortlisted for the C. Buddingh' Prize. Translations of her poems have appeared in various publications in English, Romanian, Finnish, German, Italian, French,

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

and Frisian.

Selected works

Source: * ''Het Hotel'' (The Hotel), poetry (1994) * ''Elektron, muon, tau'' (Electron, Muon, Tau), poetry (2000) * ''De zwarte engel'' (The Black Angel), prose (2005) * ''De wet van behoud van energie'' (The Law of Conservation of Energy), poetry (2007)

References

1950 births Living people Dutch women poets People from Voorburg Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam alumni University of Iowa alumni International Writing Program alumni {{Netherlands-writer-stub