Alan van der Lijn wins columnists’ competition

Second-year law student Alan van der Lijn has won Erasmus Magazine’s columnists’ competition. The jury chose his column ‘Private joke’ as the winner out of 24 entries by students. From now on, he will write a monthly column for EM.

The jury was impressed by the balance between observations and thoughts in Alan’s column. “The writer does the best job of taking me into his surroundings and inner world. The column follows a pleasing thread from observations to thoughts”, says jury member and former EM columnist Giselle Maria Timmers. “The language has a lovely rhythm, which makes it easy to read. Student slang mixes well with full sentences.”

Alan studies law and will now write a column for EM every month. In his spare time, he is a member of Skadi and regularly goes to theatre performances. He grew up surrounded by art and literature. He finds inspiration for his writing in French Romanticism.

In his columns, Alan wants to take a romantic look at the small, everyday details of modern life in the big city, such as self-checkouts in the supermarket or doomscrolling on public transport. “I like observations that turn out to have something more behind them.” He is looking forward to getting started: “I’m already finding myself in situations where a voice in my head asks: could this be a column?”

Read Alan’s winning column below.