Dutch author Connie Palmen has won the €50,000 Libris literature prize for a novel telling the story of the love affair between poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.

Their iconic marriage is more often thought of in the terms Plath portrayed it, with him as a monster and her as the victim. Plath committed suicide in 1963. But Palmen’s novel, Jij zegt het (‘you say it’) retells the love affair in his words.

The prize jury said, according to NRC: ‘Jij zegt het is not just the tragic and moving story of a famous lover’s death. It is a novel that uses the biographical genre to give a razor-sharp reflection of people’s lives – the beauty and the dirt.

‘Palmen is not dragged it through the muddy flow of gossip and cliché. Quite the opposite: she has given the love between Hughes and Plath the kiss of life.’