Big Data

A ground-breaking work of contemporary Dutch poetry, Anne Vegter’s Pig Data exposes the raw nerves of power and desire. Vegter’s poems tease language to its limit, with a restless energy that is dynamic, vicious and vulgar, infused with humour and absurdist overtones, brought to life through Astrid Alben's virtuosic translation.

Anne Vegter is the author of numerous poetry collections, children’s books, theatre monologues and erotic stories. She trained in theatre in Utrecht and taught at the Writers’ Academy in Amsterdam. She made her debut as a children’s book author in 1990 with The Lady and the Rhinoceros , which won the Woutertje Pieterse Prize, a major Dutch award for new children’s literature.

Vegter’s first poetry collection, Het veerde , appeared in 1991, followed in 1994 by Ongekuiste versies , a book of erotic tales. Since then, she has published widely across genres.

Vegter regularly works as a performer, collaborating with composers and musicians. Her work has been translated into English, German, Spanish and French. She has received numerous awards for children’s literature, theatre and poetry, including the Woutertje Pieterse Prize, the Awater Poetry Prize (2011), the Anna Blaman Prize, and the Ida Gerhardt Poetry Prize. In 2013, she became the first woman to be named Poet Laureate of the Netherlands, a role she held until 2017.

Prototype published Astrid Alben’s English translation of Vegter’s collection Eiland berg gletsjer ( Island Mountain Glacier ) in 2022. This collection, originally published in Dutch in 2020 as Big Data , was awarded the Ida Gerhardt Poetry Prize for best collection. Vegter’s work is characterised by an elastic style that is playful, erotic, enigmatic and disturbing.

Astrid Alben is a poet, editor and translator. She is the author of Ai! Ai! Pianissimo , Plainspeak and Little Dead Rabbit . Alben self-translated Little Dead Rabbit and this was published as Klein dood konijn by PoëzieCentrum. Her poetry and non-fiction have appeared in literary journals including Granta and the Times Literary Supplement . She has worked with BBC Radio, the Serpentine Gallery and Wellcome Collection, and with performance and animation.