On Friday 12 September at 19:00, Epos hosts Blocknotes, which is a creative writing initiative for imprisoned people in the Netherlands. As part of this, readings by Mohamedou Ould Slahi and Christine Otten are offered, including texts written by prison inmates Willem, Rodney, Khalil, Frank, Job, and Mohammed.


Mohamedou Ould Slahi (b. 1970, Rosso) is one of the most famous contemporary Mauritanians worldwide. This is largely due to his Guantánamo Diary, a bestseller that he penned while he was an inmate in Guantánamo prison. Reflecting on Slahi’s plight as a wrongly incarcerated detainee in the (in)famous jail, the memoir was published in January 2015 and remains the only first-person account of a Guantánamo detainee to date. Prosaic and sincere, Slahi’s book depicts his wretched life within a Kafkaesque oubliette — an impersonal yet rationalised and inhumane castle where legality is suspended in a state of exception.


Christine Otten (b. 1963, Deventer) is an author, playwright, journalist, and founder of Blocknotes. She has published several novels including Als ik je eenmaal mijn verhaal verteld heb (Once I've Told You My Story) (2024), which deals with the meaning of freedom; One of Us (2020), based on her work with the Dutch prison system; and The Last Poets (2004), about four Afro-American poets. Her work has been adapted for the stage, nominated for the Dutch Libris Literature Prize, and translated into English and Arabic.