Elfie Tromp is a writer, theatermaker, and performer. She is the city poet of Rotterdam. She recently published Pietà, her third novel, a mosaic narrative around a controversial monument.

She was crowned summer poet 2020 by CPNB. Her summer poem “Tot bloei!” appeared in a print run of 100,000 and was distributed throughout the Netherlands as a postcard. She has written the three novels ‘Pietà’, ‘Goeroe’, and ‘Underdog’. The latter was published as Grote Lijster. She has also published the poetry collection ‘Victorieverdriet’.

In addition, she creates musical theater. Currently, she performs the feminist punk cabaret show titled ‘Op de Barricade van het Hart’.

She is a columnist for De Nieuws BV on radio 1 and writes for Vrij Nederland, Volkskrant and, NRC, among others.
In 2018, she wrote the graphic novel ‘Wat je niet mag nemen’ as Rotterdam’s book week gift and the youth book week gift 3pak. She regularly presents for VPRO’s Nooit meer Slapen.

Elfie is a multi-talented, sparkling writer. Her work is humorous, edgy, and engaged.

 

Pietà

A beautiful, multi-voiced book. This book helps you relate to the most radical voices
– Trouw

There are just a few writers so adept at portraying their characters as razor-sharp and yet empathetic at the same time as Elfie Tromp…in a style full of pointed observations, she  shows the reader a disrupted society that looks suspiciously like our own.
– Noord-Hollands Dagblad

Tromp manages to keep all the storylines of these characters under control and to wrap them up neatly, too. That is clever, and she also writes well, sometimes knowing how to make things clear with just a few words, as in this marriage: ‘She says nothing. Pulls her cigarette and blows the smoke over me like a curse.’
– Trouw

 

Underdog

Sneakily sharp phrasing, tragicomic phrases you won’t find with anyone else. It’s sadness all around, in both the dog kennel and the game world. But Tromp takes her characters more seriously, by precisely not plunging them into doom.
– NRC

The creepy breeder Bonilla holds the key to happiness, but the characters in Underdog have no great talent for success. A beautiful, funny indictment of social engineering.
– Telegraaf

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