Previous editions One Book One Campus
The first edition of One Book One Campus took place in 2017. The thought behind the project is reading the same book together brings staff and students in closer contact. As part of the project, reading and discussion meetings are organised, promoting mutual contact and reinforcing a sense of community.
The first edition was organised by University College Utrecht and over the years the project spread to the university at large. In 2022, the first university wide One Book One Campus in the Netherlands took place during Diversity Month.
One Book One Campus 2025 is organised by Utrecht University Library.
The One Book One Campus writers and books are:
2024 Anton de Kom: We Slaves of Suriname
Anton de Kom (1898-1945) was a Surinamese anti-colonial writer, activist and poet. De Kom advocated for equal rights for labourers in Suriname. For this work he was arrested and sent into exile by the Dutch colonial governors. During the Second World War he joined the communist resistance against the nazi's. His book We Slaves of Suriname, the first history of Suriname by a Surinamese author, is a scathing history of three centuries Dutch colonial rule. In 2020 De Kom was included into the . In 2023 the Dutch government rehabilitated Anton de Kom and formally apologized to De Kom's heirs.
2022 Bernardine Evaristo: Girl, Woman, Other
Bernardine Evaristo (1959) is a writer and teacher of Creative Writing at Brunel University London. She was the first black woman to win the prestigious Booker Prize in 2019, for her novel Girl Woman Other. Set in past and present Britain, Girl, Woman, Other narrates the lives of twelve predominantly black and predominantly female characters, who are radically different across lines of class, geography, sexuality, and culture.
During One Book One Campus everyone at Utrecht University was invited to read and talk about the book. Evaristo visited Utrecht in October 2022.
2019 Ali Smith: Autumn
Ali Smith (1962) is the author of over ten works of fiction, and she is one of the United Kingdom鈥檚 most renowned and celebrated writers. With Autumn, Smith wanted to write a novel for our times. When it appeared in 2016 it was called the first Brexit-novel for the way it captures the sentiments and confusion of the British people after the referendum. But Autumn is much more than that. As one reviewer wrote: 鈥淚t is about 100 things in addition to friendship. It鈥檚 about poverty and bureaucracy and sex and morality and music.鈥 (New York Times). As such it offers plenty of topics to talk about. Autumn is the first of what is now known as the seasonal quartet of novels in which Smith probes our time. After Winter (2017) and Spring (2019), Summer appeared in 2020.
Ali Smith visited University College Utrecht in November 2019.
2018 Maxim Februari: The Book Club聽
Maxim Februari (1963) is a Dutch novelist, essayist, and columnist. He holds degrees in Law, Art History and Philosophy, and wrote a PhD dissertation on the limitations of rationality in economics. He is a member of the Dutch Expert Group Aviation Safety. Currently, he is highly engaged in the debate about datafication, information and privacy. Two of his books have been translated into English: The Book Club (2010) and The making of a man: notes on transsexuality (2015).
Februari visited University College Utrecht as part of its 20th anniversary celebrations.
2017 Carol Ann Duffy
In 2009, Carol Ann Duffy (1955) was the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly LGBT person to be appointed British poet laureate, a position she held until 2019. Duffy鈥檚 poems have been characterized as 鈥榮ensitive and witty with a feminist edge鈥. They have the rare quality of being much-loved by the public as well as by her fellow-poets.
Duffy visited University College Utrecht in Spring 2017. On the occasion of her visit, Agnes Andeweg and Onno Kosters edited Dichterbijen/Poet Bees (Literatuurhuis, 2017) with response poems (in Dutch) by the Utrecht City Poets Guild and the first translations of Duffy's poetry into Dutch by students of the MA Translation. Also, eight video recordings of teachers reading Duffy鈥檚 poems were made.
