Safae el Khannoussi, a new great voice in Dutch literature
In just a few months, this 31-year-old author has won two major literary prizes in the Dutch-speaking world. This is unprecedented for a debut novel. Still unpublished in French, “Oroppa” skillfully explores, in inventive language, the legacy of the “Years of Lead” during the reign of King Hassan II on the Moroccan diaspora in Europe.
“Salomé Abergel, a Moroccan Jewish painter, left her precious paintings in the cellar of her Amsterdam home and suddenly left for an unknown destination. One could say that Oroppa revolves around this mysterious disappearance,” writes De Standaard . But that would be a bit short. Because very quickly, in Safae el Khannoussi's first novel, we move from character to character, and we understand that the attempt to escape, whatever the means, “is a recurring motif” in the story, explains the Flemish daily, captivated by the skill with which the young author has woven her plot.
Oroppa was published last summer in the Netherlands (Pluim editions, not translated), and the Dutch-language press has been full of praise for its author, the 31-year-old Dutch-Moroccan Safae el Khannoussi. In December, the daily De Volkskrant, published in Amsterdam, praised a pen that “gives Dutch a new breadth” and hailed El Khannoussi as “the literary talent of 2025.” He was right.
On May 19, Safae el Khannoussi received the Libris Prize, the most prestigious Dutch literary award; in March, she had already won the Flemish equivalent, the De Boon Prize. However, “such a double award practically never happens,” points out NRC , an a
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