Opening night

Dutch writer, poet and columnist Babs Gons is behind a number of poetry initiatives, including Palabras (Amsterdam), a monthly gathering of young and/or emerging poets. Later, she founded and was artistic director of the well-known Poetry Circle. Long devoted to putting other artists in the spotlight, Gons made her writing debut in 2021 with her collection of poems Doe het toch maar. The same year, she published a children's book: Het Begint Met Een Droom. In 2022 she won ‘The Johnny’ prize for poetic interpretation, and in 2024 the ‘Gouden Ganzenveer’. Gons' poems are fundamentally socially engaged, and navigate brilliantly between global themes and the sphere of the individual and intimate. Babs Gons is currently national poetess of the Netherlands from 2023 to 2025, a term during which she aims to pursue one of the main motivations behind her work and vision: bridging the gap between the worlds of spoken word and poetry, the latter considered elitist and the former often dismissed as “inferior”. Gons shows the world both the plurality and singularity of poetic forms, while addressing the need to democratize poetry, to make it accessible: according to her, everyone can read it, integrate it into their daily lives, and even make it themselves.

Born in Belgium and raised partly in Kinshasa, Joëlle Sambi Nzeba lives in Brussels, where she works as a writer, in parallel with her professional activity within a feminist movement. The author of award-winning fiction (Le Monde est gueule de chèvre, novel, 2007 and Je ne sais pas rêver, short stories, 2002), she questions situations of powerlessness and raises questions about identity, norms and belonging.

Laura Tinard was born in Nice in 1991. She is a novelist and performer. Her first novel, “J'ai perdu mon roman”, was published by Editions du Seuil. In her practice, Laura moves back and forth between performance and literature. Laura Tinard is an artist who sails yachts and sleeps on meridiennes. She co-founded 3,000 Degrés, a performance festival at Brasseries Atlas, and runs Hi-Stories, a production company for performance writers.

Luz Volckmann is a writer living in Marseille. A feminist, trans, and activist, she published her first book, Les Chants du placard, in 2020. Aller la rivière, published in 2021 by blast editions, is a collection of political poetry blending verse and prose, continues her exploration of voices that are rarely heard.

Seynabou Sonko is a Paris-based artist from the Senegalese diaspora. A graduate of UQAM in Montreal, ENSAV La Cambre in Brussels and Université Paris 8, she has developed a body of work at the crossroads of literature, music and cinema. Her first literary works appeared in magazines such as Sabir, Muscle and Sève. In 2023, she published her first novel, Djinns, with Editions Grasset, which won the Prix du Cheval Blanc and the Prix de la Porte Dorée. Also a musician, screenwriter and singer, Seynabou Sonko has established herself as a singular new voice on the contemporary literary scene. Her ever-expanding artistic project focuses on the dialectic of overflow, whether it's a question of language through the notion of creolization developed by Martinique poet, novelist and philosopher Édouard Glissant, or the hybridity characteristic of Giallo, the Italian genre novels and films that straddle the border between crime, horror and eroticism. Driven by an intense creative energy, Seynabou Sonko questions forms, codes and allegiances, the better to subvert them and offer a work that is free, moving and profoundly contemporary.

Author, playwright, and performer Raïssa Yowali was born in Brussels to parents who are both Congolese. She is the eldest child in her family. In 2024, she published a self-published collection titled *D’aussi longtemps que je me souvienne, je me suis pensée au masculin pour embrasser les filles* (For as long as I can remember, I’ve thought of myself as male in order to kiss girls), for which she received the Jury Prize and the Audience Choice Award at the Fintro Prizes for Francophone Literature. She has also contributed to several anthologies, including *En Lettres noires* (published by Midis de la poésie) and *(Grands)-mères en Lumière* (published by maelstrÖm). In 2025, she won the Prix Paroles Urbaines and also received the Audience Award in the same competition. Her new collection, *Les Mille soleils de Busu Jano*, was published by L’Arbre de Diane in January 2026. Her performance *SMOGGG* is currently in production. She also works as a cultural journalist and contributes occasionally to various film and performing arts magazines.