Storytelling afternoon

• Date: 23 January
• label.tijd 16:00 - 18:00
• Location: International Institute of Social Studies 

Part of the Writers Unlimited Literature Festival

Storytelling in ISS is back as a part of the Writers Unlimited International Literature Festival The Hague!

Visitors, authors participating in the festival, ISS students and teachers tell each other stories on a wintery afternoon in ISS's wonderful Atrium of the International Institute of Social Studies (part of the Erasmus University Rotterdam) on the Kortenaerkade in The Hague's city centre.

This time, festival authors Rešoketšwe Manenzhe (South Africa) and Rosabelle Illes (Aruba) are also storytellers, and pianist Klaas van Dijk will provide musical interludes. The stories revolve around the question ‘What Inspires You? (Even though the World is On Fire..)’

The Storytelling Afternoon is a highly regarded festival classic. On Thursday afternoon, 23 January 2025, everyone is welcome to listen and/or tell a story. Each story will last no more than five minutes.

The programme is in English and will be facilitated by Kees Biekart and Beatrice Hati Gitundu, both from ISS.

Speakers

1. Rešoketšwe Manenzhe is a poet, short story writer and novelist from South Africa. Her short stories and poems have appeared in the Kalahari Review, Fireside Fiction, Praxis Magazine, Lolwe, FIYAH, and the 2017 Sol Plaatjie European Union Anthology, among others. She holds a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Cape Town (UCT). Her debut. the historical novel Scatterlings (2020) is set in 1927, when South Africa passes the Immorality Act, prohibiting sexual intercourse between “Europeans” (white people) and “natives” (Black people). Those who break the draconian new law face imprisonment.
2. Rosabelle Illes is an artist, writer, and performer from Aruba. She has authored three collections of poetry and short stories and co-authored the multilingual children’s book Hearty. Her work has been published in international journals, and she has performed at literary festivals worldwide, including Colombia, Taiwan, The Netherlands, and New York City. She holds a PhD in Psychology from Leiden University and is an assistant professor at the University of Aruba. Her upcoming book, Penmanship (2025), blends her passions for psychology and poetry, celebrating the written word in its purest form.
3. Klaas van Dijk is a pianist and dentist from The Netherlands. During his student days, he was active as a pop and jazz pianist. When he became a father, he started working as a dentist, but he continued to play music for theatre performances. From 1986, he accompanied famous Dutch cabaret artist Paul van Vliet on piano. Since 2016, he has been part of the team of the Dutch national TV programme Met het mes op tafel (a combination of poker and knowledge quiz) as a pianist together with host Sjoerd van Ramshorst and cabaret artist Mylou Frencken.
4. Kees Biekart is a political scientist at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) and interested in transformative change and social movements, Together with his international students, he looks for alternative ways to support political democracy at a grassroots level. He constantly seeks out new forms of research, including "storytelling", which has become an increasingly important research method.
5. Beatrice Hati Gitundu is an Urban Development Specialist from Kenya. She works on the research programme Multilevel Disaster Governance: Disasters-People-Policy-Politics of the International Centre for Frugal Innovation (ICFI, The Netherlands)/Nuvoni (Kenya). She is also a Doctoral Researcher at the ISS.

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