About this Event
The European Writers Salon is delighted to partner with Desperate Literature to bring you a fantastic literary evening at Ateneo de Madrid.
Our theme this year is 'The Age Of...' At what point does collective experience harden into an “age”? What age are we living through now? Who decides? We’ll explore these questions and the writer’s place in defining them.
The panel will feature Yael van der Wouden, Nussaibah Younis, and Jacobo Bergareche.
Yael van der Wouden was born in 1987 and lives and works in The Netherlands. The Safekeep, her debut novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024. It won the 2026 Women’s Prize and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Wingate Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.
Dr Nussaibah Younis’s debut novel Fundamentally won the Comedy Women in Print Prize and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize in 2025. For several years, she advised the Iraqi government on proposed programs to de-radicalise women affiliated with ISIS. Dr Younis was a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC, where she directed the Task Force on the Future of Iraq. She has published Op-Eds in the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, and the New York Times.
Jacobo Bergareche is a Spanish writer and screenwriter. His first novel, The Perfect Days, received a special mention in the European Union Prize for Literature and was chosen as one of the best Spanish books of 2021 by Babelia and El Confidencial. He has also published the novel Las despedidas (The Farewells); a book of poems, Playas; a play, Coma; a children’s book series, Aventuras en Bodytown; and an autobiographical essay based on the M**der of his brother in Angola.
This conversation will be hosted by Eleonora Balsano, host of the Chosen Tongue podcast.
The panel begins at 7.30 pm. You are also invited to join us for pre-event drinks at 6.30 (additional cost) and a post-event dinner (additional cost), where you can meet writers from across Europe
Event venue & nearby stays
Ateneo de Madrid, 21 Calle del Prado, Madrid, Spain
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