{"id":1783,"date":"2025-05-07T16:58:30","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T14:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ambassade-hotel-nl.ont.stuurlui.dev\/?post_type=blog&p=1783"},"modified":"2025-06-06T15:14:03","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T13:14:03","slug":"marjolijn-de-cocq","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/ambassade-hotel-nl.ont.stuurlui.dev\/de\/blog\/marjolijn-de-cocq\/","title":{"rendered":"Marjolijn de Cocq"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Marjolijn de Cocq<\/h1>\n

Marjolijn de Cocq (b.1967) graduated in Translation Studies in Amsterdam. Since 1994, she has worked as a journalist. She reported on the Yugoslavia Tribunal and the Lockerbie trial and led various editorial boards at the GPD press agency. De Cocq\u00a0 is the head of books and a columnist at Het Parool newspaper and an author with the publisher De Bezige Bij.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After the book launch of the Dutch edition of the bundled Writers\u2019 Hotel columns, journalist Marjolijn de Cocq (the book coordinator of Het Parool) wrote an additional column. Please read her column below.<\/h4>\n

This extra column has been published in the English edition of the book. Both editions were published as promotional gifts and are not for sale in book shops. However, you are most welcome to read all twenty-seven columns in English on our\u00a0website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An Extraordinary Collection<\/h3>\n

There is always the same sigh from photographers when another writer\u2019s interview has to be done at the writers\u2019 hotel. They\u2019ve already used up all of the backgrounds and locations. The library, the brasserie, the blue salon. Every sofa and canap\u00e9. Every alley around the corner, every bridge over the canal. What else could they do now?<\/p>\n

This was the case when I first came to the Ambassade Hotel more than twenty years ago, it was the same two years ago \u2014 and I can only hope that it will be the case again, sometime.<\/p>\n

My first interview in the writers\u2019 hotel took place around the corner from the entrance, in the lobby. It was 1998, and Arnon Grunberg was the author of the Book Week Gift. I was young, he was even younger. Last week, he was awarded the P.C. Hooft Prize, 2022, for his \u2018novelistic universe\u2019. He is still younger.<\/p>\n

I know his favourite room number now. It was whispered to me last week by the hotel librarian, who curates the circa 5,500 signed books by their writer guests. I was briefly in there again. Because I\u2019d been given the honour of accepting the first copy of an extraordinary collection.<\/p>\n

The bookshops had closed during the winter lockdown early last year. Writers no longer had any tours, no readings, no signings, no award ceremonies. Let alone a Book Ball. And without writers, the writers\u2019 hotel was no longer a writers\u2019 hotel, when it had grown quiet and remained quiet even longer.<\/p>\n

And so, a project was conceived within the walls of the Ambassade Hotel, under the working title Sheltering in the Writers\u2019 Hotel. Writers were invited to come and stay, and to write about the effect of this stilled time on their writing lives. Unique stories were created, which each week found their way to the newspaper Het Parool to be the Writers\u2019 Hotel column.<\/p>\n

The launch of these collected columns was attended by a (very) small committee, with a (very) small number of followers online. Maybe, we thought, we\u2019ll be able to hold a big party later, when it\u2019s spring\u2026 My eyes flitted across the spines in the library, the titles calling to mind interviews from bygone years.<\/p>\n

As the book coordinator of Het Parool, I was the cat with the cream once again this year. I travelled all over the world in books, unhindered. Hence the words that conclude Adriaan van Dis\u2019s contribution, which are also the title of this lovingly produced book: \u2018The best place for you to stay is ultimately a book.\u2019<\/p>\n

View the column on\u00a0the website of \u2018Het Parool\u2019.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

What is a writers\u2019 hotel without writers? A pen without ink? For a period of six months in 2021, one author a week was invited to stay at the Ambassade Hotel and describe their writing lives at that time. Throughout the period May to November 2021, the newspaper Het Parool published the Writers\u2019 Hotel columns in its weekly Arts Section.<\/p>\n

Read more about\u00a0this column project\u00a0in collaboration with \u2018Het Parool\u2019 .<\/p>\n

Would you like to stay at the writers\u2019 hotel as well? Enjoy a unique experience in the Ambassade Hotel\u00a0with these special offer packages\u00a0or come and admire the library after visiting\u00a0Brasserie Ambassade.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true},"blog_category":[],"class_list":["post-1783","blog","type-blog","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ambassade-hotel-nl.ont.stuurlui.dev\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/1783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ambassade-hotel-nl.ont.stuurlui.dev\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ambassade-hotel-nl.ont.stuurlui.dev\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ambassade-hotel-nl.ont.stuurlui.dev\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"blog_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ambassade-hotel-nl.ont.stuurlui.dev\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_category?post=1783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}