Chabot family writes Book Week Gift, theme ‘In our family’

CPNB Foundation The Chabot family

NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 15:02

The Book Week Gift 2024 is not written by one author, but by an entire family. All members of the Chabot family – father and mother Bart and Yolanda and the four sons Sebastiaan, Maurits, Splinter and Storm – contribute. This was announced by the Collective Propaganda Foundation for the Dutch Book (CPNB). Next year’s Book Week theme is ‘In our family’.

Bart Chabot: “We have often been asked to make something together as a family, but we have always said no. But we simply could not say no to the exciting and unique plan to give color to the Book Week together. It is the greatest and highest honor. And it was such a joy to write together.”

The Book Week Gift will be entitled Family Packaging. Bart Chabot and his sons Sebastiaan, Maurits and Splinter have written books before. It is their debut for mother Yolanda and youngest son Storm.

Not a Book Week essay

The foundation is also pleased. “I am extremely proud that the – literally – largest family of writers in the Netherlands is writing the gift together for the 89th Book Week,” says CPNB director Eveline Aendekerk. “In my opinion, there is no better fit with the theme ‘In our family’. The love for reading and books radiates from the Chabots and we traditionally celebrate exactly that love during Book Week.”

Not only the choice for an entire family is new in the history of Book Week. There will also be no Book Week essay next year for the first time since 1987.

Instead, a poetry collection has now been chosen, entitled Ooievaarsblues, also by Bart Chabot. This collection contains both old and new work by the Hague writer and poet.

The CPNB Foundation calls family and family life “an inescapable and central theme in Bart Chabot’s poems”. Before Book Week, another Book Week poem will be unveiled.

CPNB Foundation

The cover of the Book Week Gift ‘Family Packaging’, designed by Marlene Dumas

CPNB Foundation

The cover of the poetry collection ‘Ooievaarsblues’, designed by Anton Corbijn

Unlike usual, the covers of the Book Week Gift and the theme edition were unveiled in the family’s favorite Scheveningen beach bar. For example, artist Marlene Dumas made a portrait of Chabot’s deceased dog Bril for the gift at the request of Bart Chabot. Photographer and graphic designer Anton Corbijn made the cover of the poetry collection.

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