Leon de Winter

Leon de Winter (b. 1954) became known in the early 1980s with subdued, intellectual novels like 'Zoeken naar Eileen W' (Looking for Eileen W.) and 'La Place de la Bastille', but he later concentrated on creating vehicles for his most important themes – Jewish identity after the Second World War, good and evil – in what he refers to as ‘good reads.’ 'Kaplan' (1986), 'SuperTex' (1991), 'Zionoco' (1995) and 'God’s Gym' (2002) each became bestsellers.

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Photo: Marco Okhuizen

De Winter invariably writes about a man in a crisis, searching for his (Jewish) roots and being forced to make existential choices. His cinematic style reflects the fact that De Winter is also a film maker. Het recht op terugkeer (The Right of Return, 2008) has been nominated for both the AKO Literature Prize and the NS Public’s Choice Prize. De Winter is a high-profile political commentator, whose columns and essays have been published in Dutch periodicals and newspapers, as well as in German titles such as Die Welt and Der Spiegel.

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