{"id":1925,"date":"2025-05-09T09:03:35","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T07:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ambassade-hotel-nl.ont.stuurlui.dev\/?post_type=blog&p=1925"},"modified":"2025-05-21T15:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T13:07:10","slug":"alma-mathijsen","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/ambassade-hotel-nl.ont.stuurlui.dev\/fr\/blog\/alma-mathijsen\/","title":{"rendered":"Alma Mathijsen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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<\/h1>\n

Alma Mathijsen<\/h1>\n

\nAlma Mathijsen (b.1984) studied Image and Language at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and Creative Writing in New York. She has published plays, a short story collection and various novels. Mathijsen writes essays for the NRC Handelsblad newspaper. In 2020, she published her most recent novel, Save the Summer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Into the Outside World<\/h3>\n

\nI\u2019d almost forgotten that it still existed. I belong to that group of people who locked themselves away. If you live alone, that is pretty easy. You have no housemates to ask you lovingly, but also intently, whether it might not be a good idea to get out a little more.<\/p>\n

No, I stayed inside, I bought a Nintendo and baked lasagnes exclusively for myself. Between the walls of my own apartment, I didn\u2019t have to be frightened about infecting anyone, I didn\u2019t have to ask a friend for the twelfth time whether they\u2019d washed their hands for twenty seconds, I didn\u2019t have to be irritated to distraction by a husband with his nose hanging over his face mask. It was calm at home, and that was all I needed. At least, that\u2019s what I thought. I was invited to stay at the Ambassade Hotel for two nights, and naturally I could also bring someone with me. For the first time, there was somewhere I could invite my new love to.<\/p>\n

The caf\u00e9 terraces had just opened and the sun put in an appearance too. I saw people everywhere taking bites of their food, or eagerly drinking from their glasses. When they weren\u2019t doing that, they were talking excitedly. The manager was standing ready at the entrance, and he welcomed me so warmly that I thought for a moment he must have confused me with an oil baron, or an influencer with 500,000 followers. In the room, there was a bottle of Cava waiting for us on a laid table that looked out over the canal. I drank from the glass, as eagerly as the people I\u2019d seen earlier that day. I wanted to join in with them.<\/p>\n

Thomas Heerma van Voss was also sitting on the terrace; he\u2019d been invited to the hotel too. I\u2019d barely seen any other writers for a year and a half, and I was seized with an enthusiasm that I couldn\u2019t shake. I wanted to talk \u2014 it didn\u2019t matter about what. A little later, Jessica Durlacher and Solomonica de Winter drifted over the terrace, returning from a massage; they were also staying in the hotel. And I wanted to chat with them too. I grabbed what was there to be grabbed. All of those months in solitary meant I was hungrier than ever for small talk. The sillier the better \u2014 I didn\u2019t need any deep discussions.<\/p>\n

It seemed almost like a literary festival, but with an \u00e9lan that I\u2019d dreamed about all of my life. No pallets in a mud pool as a so-called backstage. Here, we had marble floors, chilled bottles of bubbly and downy bathrobes with slippers. I couldn\u2019t have wished for a better re-entry into life after sitting inside for months. I didn\u2019t realise it, but it was everything I\u2019d needed.<\/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

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 a visiting our sunny\u00a0terrace on the Herengracht!<\/p>\n

Read more about\u00a0this column project\u00a0in collaboration with \u2018Het Parool\u2019.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true},"blog_category":[6],"class_list":["post-1925","blog","type-blog","status-publish","hentry","blog_category-writers-hotel"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ambassade-hotel-nl.ont.stuurlui.dev\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/1925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ambassade-hotel-nl.ont.stuurlui.dev\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ambassade-hotel-nl.ont.stuurlui.dev\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ambassade-hotel-nl.ont.stuurlui.dev\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"blog_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ambassade-hotel-nl.ont.stuurlui.dev\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_category?post=1925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}