Yael van der Wouden on sex, history and an incredible year

Newly crowned 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction winner Yael van der Wouden on her celebrated novel The Safekeep. 

The win tops off an incredible year for Yael who also made the 2024 Booker Prize shortlist for her debut. 

The Safekeep is set in the Netherlands, 15 years after the end of World War II and is about an uptight woman, an unpredictable house guest, loneliness, repression and desire. The novel confronts the prevailing narrative about the Dutch experience of World War II and its treatment of Jewish people.

Claire Nichols spoke to Yael at the Sydney Writers Festival.