In the fall of 2016 I moved to Gothenburg, Sweden, as the Scandinavia correspondent to Dutch daily Trouw, also working as a freelance journalist for several other (international) news media and magazines. The years prior to my move I worked at Trouw's offices in Amsterdam as an editor for subsequently the sustainability, foreign and domestic news desk.
My focus is on long-reads covering - primarily - the environment, integration, inequality and culture. Recent stories I've written concern for example the unaccompanied Afghan youth living in a Swedish limbo, the expanding neo-nazi movement in Scandinavia, the myth of North European loneliness and the transformation of large boreale regions into toilet-paper plantations. When in the mood I also publish both personal essays on, say, my side-career as a mediocre model, and travel stories.
Before ending up in journalism I studied (post-colonial) history, occasionally sidetracked by courses in philosophy and literature. I eventually graduated as a master of arts from the joint Europaeum Program for which I studied at Oxford, Sorbonne-Pantheon I in Paris and Leiden - after bachelor studies at the University of Amsterdam and a semester abroad at the City University of New York, graduating with honors. Both my theses focused on the Indonesian independence war and the portrayal thereof in respectively Indonesian literature and the international media.
For my studies abroad I received scholarships from Vrijvrouwe van Renswoude, the Amsterdam University Fund and the Erasmus program.
During and in between my studies I have completed several courses and internships at The Royal Dutch Institute in Rome (KNIR), the Dutch Institute in Athens (NIA) and the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam.
I speak and write in Dutch, English and Swedish and read German and French.