Yael van der Wouden

1987–

Dutch novelist and essayist born in Tel Aviv to an Israeli mother and a Dutch father. She moved to the Netherlands as a child and studied comparative literature at Utrecht University and SUNY Binghamton. Her essays include On (Not) Reading Anne Frank, exploring Dutch-Jewish identity. The Safekeep (2024), her debut novel, combines a love story set in the postwar Netherlands with an examination of dispossession and suppressed history. It made her the first Dutch novelist nominated for the Booker Prize, reached the shortlist, and won the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Timeline of Yael van der Wouden’s life

Works

Prizes