Biography

Talk-show host on Dutch television

After her career, the Sonja Barend Award was named after her, an award that is awarded annually for the best TV interview in the Netherlands.

Sonja Barend was a Dutch television personality and talk show host. Her talk show Sonja, which she presented since the 1970s, was noted for breaking taboos and allowing ordinary people a voice in public dialog.

She officially retired from making television in 2006, and on the occasion of her last Sonja show, was awarded as Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Job Cohen, then-mayor of Amsterdam. That last episode, which included an overview of her career and a number of notable television personalities, received a subtitle, "En morgen gezond weer op!" ("And tomorrow, wake up healthy"), in reference to her usual closing of her TV shows.

Especially in the 1970s and 1980s she was never afraid to openly discuss taboo topics-homosexuality, feminism, emancipation, and sexuality. According to Marcel van Dam, chairman of the VARA from 1985 on to 1995, she personified the public's negative perception of the VARA (ill-tempered, moralistic), but he could not imagine how the VARA would have survived without her.