Extended Biography
Tommy Wieringa (1967) wrote, amongst others, the novels Alles over Tristan (Halewijn award, 2002) and his breakthrough title Joe Speedboat (F. Bordewijk award, 2006), which introduced him to a large audience. His travelogues were published under the title I never was in Isfahan (2006). In 2007 followed The Dynamics of Desire, an engaging investigation into the origin of desire and the large role of pornography in the modern world. His essays and op-eds appeared in major Dutch newspapers de Volkskrant and NRC Handelsblad. Wieringa’s work has been translated worldwide. In May 2009, Little Ceasar was published, and it was nominated for the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2013. Le Figaro wrote, “the only ones who succeeded in reaching the holy grail of writing a ‘total novel’ are W.G. Sebald with Austerlitz, J.M. Coetzee with Disgrace and Philip Roth with Everyman. We could add the name of Tommy Wieringa to that list.” Publisher’s Weekly gave Little Ceasar a starred review. In 2012 These Are the Names came out, which received the Libris Literature Award, one of the two most prestigious literary awards in the Netherlands, as well as a distinguished readers’ award: de Gouden Boekenuil. The Times Literary Supplement found These are the Names to be “highly intelligent. Tommy Wieringa will make you think and keep you reading eagerly to the final page.” The Guardian lauded the novel and considered it a “timeless tale of migration”.
In 2014 Tommy Wieringa was asked to write a short work of fiction for the annual Dutch Books Week, an honor bestowed upon one author yearly. Reviewing this novel, titled A beautiful young wife, The Guardian claimed Wieringa to possess “absolute narrative authority,” adding that “you know you’re in the presence of properly great fiction writing when you forget to question a single word of it”, continuing by noting the novel is “a wonderfully disconcerting piece of work which, on a second and even a third reading, only seems to grow more expansive and multifaceted while managing at the same time to remain mysterious and tightly furled.”
In 2015 a new collection of travelogues, Honorary Cossack, was published. After These are the Names, Wieringa wrote another migrant history with The death of Murat Idrissi (spring 2017; nominated for the Man Booker International Prize in 2019), which The Guardian considered to be a “heartstopping novella” that “unfolds like a movie”, calling it “brilliantly well paced and edgy.” Later that year, his novel The Holy Rita, about a father and son and modern times in a traditional border town, was published to critical and unanimous acclaim. In 2018, Wieringa started writing columns for NRC Handelsblad. Later that year The Holy Rita received the renowned Dutch literary award the Bookspot Literature Prize; on top of his game, Wieringa took home both the Critics and the Readers award.”