Gerda Blees (1985) is a Dutch writer, poet and visual artist. Her first short story collection We Didn’t Think of Dying was published in 2017, receiving wide acclaim. Her 2020 debut novel We are Light was nominated for the Libris Prize for best Dutch work of fiction, and won the Dutch Booksellers Prize, European Union Prize for Literature and the Premio Salerno Libro d’Europa. It has been translated into nine languages.
In 2022, she published the poetry collection Week and graduated from the DOGtime department of the Rietveld Academy, with visual work about the Bijlmer plane crash. She is currently writing a novel on this subject, which will be published in 2026. In addition, she works in and on the Poëziepoli, where she uses her typewriter to write custom poems for patients, visitors, and hospital staff.
