Safae el Khannoussi’s debut novel Oroppa (2024) travels from Amsterdam and Paris to Tunis and Casablanca, challenging perceptions of what it means to be European in today's post-colonial and migration context. The novel serves as an ode to resistance and resilience, celebrating a diverse cast of characters, as the interweaving stories explore the hidden sides of Europe.
Oroppa was not only widely praised in the press and literary circles, it was also awarded the Flemish Boon Prize for Fiction as well as the prestigious Dutch Libris Literatuurprijs 2025. The latter was in its thirty year history never awarded to a debut novel.
In December 2025 El Khannoussi will visit Sheffield as our Guest Author to discuss her work with students of Dutch. In addition, final year students will collaborate with the author and with literary translator Shimanto Reza on the English translation of an extract from Oroppa.
Reza is a familiar name in Sheffield: in 2022 he contributed to the Sheffield translation of the graphic novel Quaco. My Life in Slavery by Ineke Mok and Eric Heuvel.
The annual literary translation project is a collaboration with UCL and is sponsored by the Netherlands Embassy, the Dutch Foundation for Literature and the Dutch Language Union.
You are all invited to join us on 9 December 2025, at 16.00 for a public conversation with El Khannoussi and Reza about El Khannoussi's literary work, her academic research into Moroccan prisons, Reza's challenges in translating such a wide-ranging text, and the state of ‘Oroppa’ today.
All welcome!