2025 - Leon Sofie Verraest
Leon Sofie Verraest (they/their, b. 1986) writes and performs poetry, prose, and nonfiction in Dutch, English, and West-Flemish.
Their texts have been published in European, American and Australian magazines, most recently the novella “She Kong” (Failbetter Magazine, 2023) and its Dutch self-translation “Sji Kong” in Deus Ex Machina (2022). Throughout the years they have gained recognition by winning several prizes and grants (Elizabeth Kostova Foundation’s “New voices in international writing”, Pogon Zagreb, or Deus Ex Machina’s Dutch-language talent of the year), the VLOED writing contest in Ostend being the most recent in 2023.
During their residency in Norwich, they will be working on their first novel, a coming-of-age story about a Flemish girl who grows up on the Belgian language border in a social housing area. It deals with class insecurity, language insecurity, and that painful little spot where the two meet. It reflects on otherness and the power and violence of borders and norms.