Marcia Luyten

About Marcia Luyten

Marcia Luyten is a highly sought-after speaker, writer, columnist, moderator, and television presenter. She presented Buitenhof, the interview and discussion program of the NPO, for six years. Since 2019, she has been writing influential columns for de Volkskrant and is one of the presenters of the radio program Met het Oog op Morgen. She is currently working on a book about the Dutch colony in Brazil in the 17th century.

Marcia frequently writes and speaks about democracy and economics, emerging autocracies, the power of tech companies, and the role of the economy in these dynamics. Her books include Choosing for Democracy or Dictatorship (2024) and Democracy is Not for the Faint-Hearted (2023).

She writes and moderates debates on the sustainability and transformation of the economy and culture necessary for a circular economy that once again places nature alongside humanity. Literature, music, and theater are old passions about which she enjoys moderating discussions.

In 2021, her biography of Queen Máxima was published: Motherland, the Early Years of Máxima Zorreguieta. The Videoland series based on this book has been sold to 53 countries. Her literary non-fiction The Fortune of Limburg (2015) was awarded the Brusse Prize for the best journalistic book of the year. Through a family chronicle, this book tells the story of the glory and downfall of the Dutch coal industry. Essential to this: the social engineering that underpinned the rapid development of a large and successful industry. And vital to that social engineering: the power of an attractive, seductive story in which people want to live. Between July and December 2025, a large musical theater spectacle based on this book will be performed in Kerkrade, with Huub Stapel in the lead role.

Between 2001 and 2010, Marcia worked for six years as a correspondent in Rwanda and Uganda. She published White Give Money (2003), and Goodbye Africa (2013) about her travels. In 2008, she wrote Ziende Blind about how living in Africa opened her eyes to Dutch culture and democracy.

Luyten is a business economist and cultural historian. She completed the diplomatic training program and worked for several years at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.