Anna Enquist (1945) is one of the most esteemed Dutch writers. She studied piano at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and psychology at Leiden University. In 1991, while working as a psychoanalyst, she published a collection of poems titled "Solatenliederen" (Soldier Songs), for which she received the C. Buddingh Award for the best debut poetry. Since then, she has mainly devoted herself to writing. Her first two prose works, "Het meesterstuk" (The Masterpiece, 1995) and "Het geheim" (The Secret, 1997), are psychological novels in which classical music plays a central role. In 2005, she published the significant historical novel "De thuiskomst" (Homecomig), depicting the life of Elizabeth Batts, the wife of James Cook. She received the French Prix du Livre Corderie Royale-Hermione for this novel. In her novels, she often combines the realms of psychology and classical music in a particularly exciting way, which has brought her a broad audience, both in the Netherlands and beyond.
