Yael van der Wouden

Van der Wouden was born in Tel Aviv to an Israeli mother and Dutch father and moved to the Netherlands at ten, growing up trilingual; she later studied in New York, where she discovered she wrote most naturally in English, her third language.

Her essay 'On (Not) Reading Anne Frank,' about Dutch identity and Jewishness, received a notable mention in The Best American Essays 2018 before she turned to fiction.

The Safekeep, her debut novel, was acquired through a nine-way auction across the UK and US, sold in more than a dozen countries, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize the same year it won the Women's Prize in 2025.