Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer is a Dutch novelist, dramatist and poet. He was born in 1968. In Rijswijk. Until 2008 he lived in Leiden and taught classical philology at the University of Leiden after which he moved to Genova, Italy. Pfeijffer’s first poetry collection, Van de vierkante man, was published in 1998 and he immediately received the C. Buddingh award for poetry. He published six more poetry collections, influenced primarily by the ancient poets Horaca and Pindar, but also modern ones like Ezra Pound and Derek Walcott. For his book of poetry Idyllen (2015) he received two of the most important Dutch poetry awards: Jan Campert and VSB Poëzieprijs.

Pfeijffer also published ten dramatic and prose works: his first novel Rupert (2002) was a success in his home country and won two literary awards (Anton Wachterprijs and Seghers-Literatuurprijs Gerard Walschap-Londerzeel). His novel La Superba (2013) is highly successful internationally: the novel has been translated to more than ten languages and awarded several prestigious awards, such as the Dutch Libris (2014).