P.C. Hooft Award for Tijs Goldschmidt
Rijksakademie advisor Tijs Goldschmidt will receive the P.C. Hooft Award for contemplative prose. This was announced on Wednesday 21 December during the celebration of 75 years of the P.C. Hooft Award at the Museum of Literature in The Hague.
The jury – consisting of Maxim Februari, Mirjam van Hengel, Sinan Çankaya, Daniël Rovers and Sana Valiulina – called him an "essayist pur sang" and praised his extraordinarily diverse oeuvre and language.
Goldschmidt is a writer and evolutionary biologist and was a student at the Rijksakademie from 1979 to 1981, when it was still a traditional art academy. Since 2008, he has been affiliated as an advisor.
He made his debut as a writer in 1994 with 'Darwin’s Dreampond’. In his now extensive oeuvre, he does not limit himself to any specific genre. In his essays (also called 'Goldschmidt variations') reflections, and non-fiction, he manages to link culture and evolution in a personal and humorous way, always interlacing his stories and observations with highly original comparisons.
The P.C. Hooft Award is one of the most prestigious prizes in the Dutch-speaking region, named after Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft (1581-1647) who is considered the first modern poet in the Dutch language. Besides a handsome sum of money, Goldschmidt receives a certificate and a bronze statue of P.C. Hooft, a replica of a bust made by Frits Sieger, which can be found in Amsterdam's Jan Luijkenstraat. Coincidentally, Sieger is also a Rijksakademie alumnus. He was a student from 1912 to 1928.
Goldschmidt's latest collection of essays 'Wolven op het ruiterpad' (Wolves on the bridle path) was published last May and received the Jan Wolkers Prize 2022.
