Lieke Marsman was a writer and former Poet Laureate of the Netherlands, widely regarded as one of the most compelling new voices in Dutch literature. She published her debut poetry collection, ‘Things That I Tell Myself’, in 2010 at the age of twenty, earning three major poetry prizes.
In 2018, Marsman was diagnosed with bone cancer. In the months following her diagnosis, she wrote ‘The Following Scan Will Last Five Minutes’, translated into English by poet Sophie Collins and published by Liverpool University Press.
Her first novel, ‘The Opposite of a Person’ (2017), was longlisted for the ECI Literature Prize. The English edition, also translated by Collins, was published by Daunt Books in 2022.
Her memoir ‘On Another Planet They Can Save Me’ was published in 2025 and became an instant bestseller in the Netherlands. The English translation by Sophie Collins is forthcoming from Daunt Books (UK) and Catapult (US) in 2026.
Lieke Marsman passed away in June 2026 at the age of 35.
