David Van Reybrouck
““History at its best.””
© Frank RuiterDavid Van Reybrouck is the author of Congo: The Epic History of a People, which won twenty prizes, sold over half a million copies and has been translated into a dozen languages. His book Against Elections has been translated into more than twenty languages and has led to the trial use of participatory democracy in numerous countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain. His plays Mission and Para have been performed across Europe, and his novel Zinc won the European Book Prize 2017.
Revolusi, his landmark book about Indonesia’s struggle for independence was first published in the Netherlands, where it was a major bestseller. In November 2023 it was awarded the prestigious Geschwister Scholl Prize, a German prize named after Hans and Sophie Scholl who were members of the White Rose, the Munich student group that resisted the Nazis. The prize is awarded annually to honour a recent book that bears witness to intellectual independence, and promotes civic freedom, and moral, intellectual and aesthetic courage. The judges said that Revolusi “presents Indonesia's liberation from colonial rule as a gripping global history that is highly topical”.
David Van Reybrouck has been described as 'one of the leading intellectuals in Europe' (Der Tagesspiegel) and 'one of the most brilliant European intellectuals of the moment' (Le Soir). He is Belgian, writes in Dutch and is based in Brussels.
Published works
