Fiction, essays and spoken word exploring cultural memory, forgotten women and storytelling.
ZIE MIJ STAAN
(English edition: I Stand Corrected — November 2026)
Zie Mij Staan is a literary novel about memory, displacement and the search for female voices erased from history.
The novel grew out of a personal experience of displacement: a six-year-old child arriving at Schiphol Airport from what was then Czechoslovakia, searching for recognition inside a world and language that no longer felt entirely her own. That question — how do you find yourself inside a story that excludes you? — became the emotional foundation of the book.
After more than twenty years teaching and mentoring at the pop dep. of the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Blanka Pesja became increasingly aware of how often female voices disappear from cultural memory.
This search led her to the historical figure Trijn Jacobs, a 54-year-old widow from Edam who, in 1655, travelled alone to Gouda to free her friend Geertje Dircx from imprisonment against Rembrandt’s wishes.
History reduced her to a footnote.
For Blanka Pesja, Trijn Jacobs became a heroine.
Blending personal history with archival research, Zie Mij Staan explores silence, female solidarity, identity and the courage to claim presence in a world that repeatedly asks women to disappear.
The English edition, I Stand Corrected, will be published in November 2026.
Book Launch — Zie Mij Staan
The Dutch launch of Zie Mij Staan will take place on 3 September 2026 at 19:00 at the Waterlands Archief.
The evening will include a reading, conversation and presentation connected
to the historical research and themes behind the novel.
Admission is free