Short biography: 

Eva Meijer is a philosopher, visual artist, writer and singer-songwriter. They write novels, philosophical essays, academic texts, poems and columns, and their work has been translated into over twenty languages. Recurring themes are language including silence, madness, nonhuman animals, and politics. Meijer also works as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam, writes essays and columns for NRC newspaper, and is a member of the Multispecies Collective.

Longer biography:

Eva Meijer is an artist, writer, philosopher and singer-songwriter.

Books

Meijer wrote sixteen books and their work has been translated into over twenty languages. Their first novel Het schuwste dier (Prometheus) was published in 2011 and was nominated for the Academica Literatuurprijs, the Gouden Boekenuil and the Vrouw&Proza DebuutPrijs. Short stories and poems have been published in Dutch and Flemish literary magazines, such as De Revisor, Tirade and De Brakke Hond. Their second novel Dagpauwoog was published in November 2013, to critical acclaim. In 2016 the book Dierentalen (Animal Languages) was published, a popular philosophical book about nonhuman animal languages and the question what language actually is. Their third novel Het vogelhuis (Bird Cottage), was published in September 2016 and chosen as one of the books of the month by DWDD book panel on national television. It won the readers' prize of the BNG Bank Literatuurprijs and has been nominated for the Libris Literatuurprijs, the ECI Literatuurprijs, the Vondel translation prize and the International Dublin Literary Award. Dierentalen and Het vogelhuis are translated into Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Swedish and Turkish. Dierentalen will also be translated into Finnish, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Spanish, Taiwanese en Czech; Het vogelhuis into Croatian. In 2017 De soldaat was een dolfijn was published, an essay about political animals, which was translated into German and won the 2018 Hypatia prize. In 2018 Meijer won the Halewijnprijs for all their books. In 2019, De grenzen van mijn taal was published, a philosophical essay about depression, which was translated into English, Norwegian, Polish, Turkish, Spanish and German, and nominated for the Bookspot Literatuurprijs and the Socratesbeker. Voorwaarts, a novel, was also published that year (a German translation was published recently). When animals speak: Towards an interspecies democracy, an academic book, came out in November 2019 (New York University Press)and was awarded the ASCA Book Award in 2020. In 2020 their novel De nieuwe rivier was published, a magical-realist murder mystery (upcoming translations: German, Italian; nominated for the Confituur Boekhandelsprijs and BNG Bank Literatuurprijs). In 2021 Meijer wrote the essay for the Dutch Month of Philosophy: Vuurduin. Aantekeningen bij een wereld die verdwijnt. In the same year, the novella Haar vertrouwde gedaante was published. In 2022 Meijer published three books: a novel called Zee Nu, in which the North sea floods the Netherlands, Verwar het niet met afwezigheid. Over politieke stiltes, an essay about politics and silence, and Misschien is een ander woord voor hoop. Een pleidooi voor meerstemmigheid in het politieke en publieke debat a pamflet about the public debate, and the role of language in politics. In 2023, the poetry collection  Het witste woord and the novel Dagen van glas were published.   

Philosophy

Meijer's philosophical work mostly focuses on language, democracy and social justice, with special attention for nonhuman animals and nature. They successfully defended their PhD thesis in philosophy, titled 'Political Animal Voices' (University of Amsterdam) in September 2017 (cum laude). The thesis was awarded the Praemium Erasmianum Dissertation Prize in 2018. Meijer  worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Wageningen University and Research in a project about animal agency in the Anthropocene, and now does postdoctoral research at the University of Amsterdam, supported by a VENI-grant from the NWO (Dutch Science Council). The project is called ‘The politics of (not) eating animals’ (2021-2025). Meijer wrote philosophical columns for Dutch newspaper Trouw (2019-2021). They are co-chair of the Dutch OZSW study group for animal philosophy (since 2014). An academic profile can be found on the website of the University of Amsterdam. Meijer currently writes columns and essays for Dutch newspaper NRC.

Art 

As a visual artist, Meijer works in different media, such as performance art, music theatre, installation, video, drawing and photography. They are a member of the Meersoortig Collectief, the Multispecies Collective. They also collect trees on instagram.

Music

As singer-songwriter Meijer released four albums and two EP's, and played many concerts in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, England and the USA. More information and music can be found here.  

For selected reviews and other media you can visit the press page.

Meijer also has a weblog (in Dutch, but with drawings and photographs) and gives many talks.

photograph: Robin Haig