Speaker Bio
Born in Bruges, Belgium, David Van Reybrouck is a journalist, a writer of literary nonfiction, a poet and a playwright.
Mr. Van Reybrouck studied archaeology and philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and received a master’s degree in world archaeology from the University of Cambridge. He decided to pursue a career as a writer and made his debut on the literary scene in 2001 with his novel, “The Plague.” “A Plea for Populism” was published in 2008 for which he received the Jan Hanlo Essay Prize and the Flemish Critics Cultural Prize.
His greatest success to date is “Congo: The Epic History of a People,” published in 2010 in Belgium and the Netherlands. The book presents an intimately researched and monumental overview of the ravaged Belgian colony, and resulted in Mr. Van Reybrouck receiving several literary awards, including the Libris History Prize, the Jan Greshoff Prize and the AKO Literature Prize. The book was a runaway success in a number of European countries and has been translated into several languages.
2013 saw the publication of “Against Elections: The Case For Democracy,” an urgent call for the reform of representative democracy, which has been sold in almost twenty countries to date. In 2016 “A Jihad For Love,” co-authored with Mohamed el-Bachiri, became a best seller and has been published in several languages. His latest work, “Peace Can be Learned: Healing Violence and Terrorism,” co-authored with Thomas D’Ansembourg was published in French in 2016.
Mr. Van Reybrouck is one of the most renowned literary and political writers of his generation, as well as a pioneering social activist and advocate of participatory democracy. He is one of the original initiators of the G1000 Citizens' Summit, an innovative experiment in deliberative democracy started in 2011 that attempts to address Belgium's recent political crisis by bringing citizens together. G1000 aims to revitalize Belgium's current representative democratic system by complementing it with deliberative democracy and has led to trials in participatory democracy throughout The Netherlands.
He completed his Ph.D. at Leiden University in the Netherlands and currently lives in Brussels.
Mr. Van Reybrouck studied archaeology and philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and received a master’s degree in world archaeology from the University of Cambridge. He decided to pursue a career as a writer and made his debut on the literary scene in 2001 with his novel, “The Plague.” “A Plea for Populism” was published in 2008 for which he received the Jan Hanlo Essay Prize and the Flemish Critics Cultural Prize.
His greatest success to date is “Congo: The Epic History of a People,” published in 2010 in Belgium and the Netherlands. The book presents an intimately researched and monumental overview of the ravaged Belgian colony, and resulted in Mr. Van Reybrouck receiving several literary awards, including the Libris History Prize, the Jan Greshoff Prize and the AKO Literature Prize. The book was a runaway success in a number of European countries and has been translated into several languages.
2013 saw the publication of “Against Elections: The Case For Democracy,” an urgent call for the reform of representative democracy, which has been sold in almost twenty countries to date. In 2016 “A Jihad For Love,” co-authored with Mohamed el-Bachiri, became a best seller and has been published in several languages. His latest work, “Peace Can be Learned: Healing Violence and Terrorism,” co-authored with Thomas D’Ansembourg was published in French in 2016.
Mr. Van Reybrouck is one of the most renowned literary and political writers of his generation, as well as a pioneering social activist and advocate of participatory democracy. He is one of the original initiators of the G1000 Citizens' Summit, an innovative experiment in deliberative democracy started in 2011 that attempts to address Belgium's recent political crisis by bringing citizens together. G1000 aims to revitalize Belgium's current representative democratic system by complementing it with deliberative democracy and has led to trials in participatory democracy throughout The Netherlands.
He completed his Ph.D. at Leiden University in the Netherlands and currently lives in Brussels.
Full Name
David Van Reybrouck
