Maite Karssenberg wins Libris History Prize
The jury honoured Dubbelleven, her biography of Geertruida Kapteyn-Muysken.
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Maite Karssenberg won the 2026 Libris History Prize on Sunday with her book Dubbelleven. The jury selected the biography of Geertruida Kapteyn-Muysken from five nominated popular history books.
The winner was announced by jury chairman Frits Spits during a special broadcast of the VPRO programme OVT. Karssenberg receives €20,000. The prize is intended for a history book that appeals to a wide audience while also being based on original and rigorous research.
According to the book description, Dubbelleven is about Geertruida Kapteyn-Muysken, a Dutch radical thinker from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. According to the book’s description, Karssenberg examines her ambitions, her views on marriage and motherhood, and her involvement with international groups of idealists, feminists and anarchists.
The author based her biography on diaries and letters. Karssenberg is a writer and historian and previously worked on a travel book about Iran. Dubbelleven is her debut as a biographer. According to the prize organisation, the jury praised, among other things, the way she reconstructs the central figure through archival material.
The other nominees were Isabel Casteels with De kronieken van de dood, Maarten van Ginderachter with Arm Vlaanderen, Dik van der Meulen with Meester in het paradijs and Dik Verkuil with De ongenaakbare Bolkestein. This year marks the twentieth time the prize has been awarded.
The distinction is particularly relevant within the Dutch literary world, but also shows which historical subjects are currently reaching a broad audience. With Karssenberg’s book, the jury emphasises female ambition, social expectations and the role of personal sources in historiography. That is a jury judgement, not an established assessment of the book’s historical significance.
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The winner, title, prize and announcement were confirmed by the prize organisation. The book’s substantive descriptions come from the book and prize information and have not been presented as an independent jury fact.
- confirmed Maite Karssenberg won the Libris History Prize on 25 October 2026 with Dubbelleven. — Libris’s official winner page states this explicitly. source
- confirmed The prize carries €20,000 in prize money. — The amount appears in the official prize information. source
- confirmed The prize was announced by jury chairman Frits Spits during OVT. — The official prize organisation names Frits Spits and the special OVT broadcast. source
Editor's note
The prize organisation confirms the winner, the book, the jury chairman and the prize money. VPRO confirmed the nominees and the planned announcement in advance; the jury’s praise is presented as a jury judgement.Sources
More on this in Dutch media
- AD — „maite karssenberg”
- de Volkskrant — „maite karssenberg”
- RTL Nieuws — „maite karssenberg”