Description

A ground-breaking work of contemporary Dutch poetry, following the acclaimed Island mountain glacier (2022), Anne Vegter’s Pig Data exposes the raw nerves of power and desire.

The collection orchestrates a mythic and historical collision between three formidable figures – the South African poet Ingrid Jonker, the mythical witch Medea, and a provocative poetic ‘I’ (evoking the trope of the ‘scorned woman’) – to interrogate the male gaze and the transformative potential of female rage.

Vegter’s poems tease language to its limit, with a restless energy that is dynamic, vicious and vulgar, infused with humour and absurdist overtones, brought to life through Astrid Alben’s virtuosic translation.

Pig Data fearlessly rebuffs the comforts of traditional form, revelling in contradictions, moving between luminous vulnerability and a fractured, explosive urgency.

Winner of the Ida Gerhardt Poetry Prize

‘Pig Data is a visceral and fury-driven tableau of violence and vulnerability that asks us to travel through and inhabit a triptych of portraits of vengeance and desire. This is a perfectly sculpted book, as immersive as an installation, often harnessing, and sometimes running to their limits, the overspills of terror. It’s also a book full of humour, and sudden stabs of absolute tenderness.’ – Deryn Rees-Jones

‘A poetic fire born of fury. Language as lethal as it is tender. Here, a scorned wife transforms hurt into triumphant, ancestral self-reliance and fantastic humor. There is much delight in this revenge!’ – Antjie Krog

‘Vegter’s linguistic universe is unique. She knows how to use language to seduce, comfort, surround and carve out a place of her own. Vegter knows how to make contradictions her strength and blows the reader away with swings between tenderness and rage, hesitation and wisdom.’ – Ida Gerhardt Poetry Prize Judges

‘Tumultuous work, in which the chaos can scarcely be tamed and much is possible that would not work in more concentrated poetry. Vegter’s later books make it evident that the poetic principle of free and idiosyncratic use of language forms the basis of everything she writes.’ – T. van Deel in Trouw

‘Humour is never far away and the energetic will to live is the ultimate answer to all the reflective questions we pose ourselves in relation to the transience of everything.’ – Jan Pollet

‘Vegter writes daring, personal poetry that sometimes teases language to the limit. One time her poems may consist of complex chess configurations, whereas at other times the poet can be trite, incoherent or even vulgar. It all contributes to the stimulating, grating feeling that someone is getting too close to you.’ – Ron Rijghard in NRC Handelsblad

Anne Vegter is the author of numerous poetry collections, children’s books, theatre monologues and erotic stories. She trained in theatre in Utrecht and taught at the Writers’ Academy in Amsterdam. She made her debut as a children’s book author in 1990 with The Lady and the Rhinoceros, which won the Woutertje Pieterse Prize, a major Dutch award for new children’s literature. Vegter’s first poetry collection, Het veerde, appeared in 1991, followed in 1994 by Ongekuiste versies, a book of erotic tales. Since then, she has published widely across genres.

Vegter regularly works as a performer, collaborating with composers and musicians. Her work has been translated into English, German, Spanish and French. She has received numerous awards for children’s literature, theatre and poetry, including the Woutertje Pieterse Prize, the Awater Poetry Prize (2011), the Anna Blaman Prize, and the Ida Gerhardt Poetry Prize. In 2013, she became the first woman to be named Poet Laureate of the Netherlands, a role she held until 2017.

Prototype published Astrid Alben’s English translation of Vegter’s collection Eiland berg gletsjer (Island Mountain Glacier) in 2022. This collection, originally published in Dutch in 2020 as Big Data, was awarded the Ida Gerhardt Poetry Prize for best collection. Vegter’s work is characterised by an elastic style that is playful, erotic, enigmatic and disturbing. Her next collection, Projectmedewerker (Project Staff), will be published in January 2026.

Astrid Alben is a poet, editor and translator. She is the author of Ai! Ai! Pianissimo, Plainspeak and Little Dead Rabbit. Alben self-translated Little Dead Rabbit and this was published as Klein dood konijn by PoëzieCentrum. Her poetry and non-fiction have appeared in literary journals including Granta and the Times Literary Supplement. She has worked with BBC Radio, the Serpentine Gallery and Wellcome Collection, and with performance and animation. 

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