Last year Hassan Bahara debuted with Een verhaal uit de stad Damsko (A story from the city of Damsko). Whilst writing the book, he was inspired by Charles Baudelaire's motto: ‘You gave me mud, I turned it into gold.’ And that’s exactly what he did, generating a splendid novel from the harshly realistic story of a Moroccan boy slowly sinking into the despair of life in Amsterdam-West. Under the cover of a pseudonym, Bahara has twice been awarded the El Hizjra Literatuurprijs, for young talents of Arab and Moroccan descent. Like Niels ’t Hooft, Bahara Bahara also participated in Crossing Borders' Kronieken 2006 project, the predecessor of The Chronicles.

www.hassanbahara.nl