Booker Prize nominee Astrid Roemer dead at age 78
Celebrated Dutch-Surinamese author Astrid Roemer died on Thursday, publishing company Prometheus announced on social media. The 78-year-old passed away at her residence in Paramaribo, Suriname. She was born in the capital in 1947, and had recently returned to live in the city. The cause of death was not specified.
Roemer is the recipient of the 2021 Dutch Literature Prize, the country’s highest honor for authors who write in the Dutch language. She was also handed the P.C. Hooft Award in 2016 for her accomplished career. That made her "the first Suriname author to receive these highest literary awards," Prometheus noted.
The English translation of her 1982 novel, Over de gekte van een vrouw, was on the long list of nominees for the 2025 International Booker Prize, a jury award for the best book translated into English. Although the novel was published more than 40 years earlier, it was first translated by Lucy Scott in 2024 under the title, On a Woman’s Madness.
“This classic of queer literature – as electrifying today as it was when it first appeared in 1982 – tells the story of a courageous Black woman trying to live a life of her choosing,” the Booker Prize Foundation wrote in its summary of the book last year. It did not make the cut for the award's short list, an honor split between the author and translator.
“A modern classic set in Suriname and lyrically rendered into English for the first time, On a Woman’s Madness is a testament to both the resilience of queer lives that exist everywhere and every time and the alchemy of literary translation where a perfect book meets its perfect translator,” the International Booker Prize jury stated.
"Astrid Roemer leaves a literary legacy that is of lasting significance to Dutch literature, the Caribbean area and Suriname. Her work will continue to be highly valued, read, studied and discussed both nationally and internationally," Prometheus stated.
