Paul Biegel
The Gardens of Dorr (De tuinen van Dorr)
Lovers in a petrified city
This book can be seen as the magnum opus in Biegel’s sizeable oeuvre. He presents a theme relevant to all times and all cultures – love conquers death – , convincing and often touching characters and an extraordinarily ingenious composition, plus an abundant wealth of language, humour and imagination.
Princess Nevermine’s dearest friend is the gardener’s apprentice, Evermine, but the witch Sirdis cannot bear to see their blossoming love and turns the boy into a flower. For seven long summers, the little princess searches for the lost gardens of Dorr, where the seed from the flower can again grow into a man, her living love. Behind the girl rides the minstrel Jarrick, who acts as jester in the court of the king, ‘because he is such an expert on sadness’. Slowly but surely, he reveals the secret of the seed and, when the last piece of the puzzle falls into place, the wicked witch shrivels up and the dead city of Dorr is green again and there is feasting everywhere. Everyone can start living happily ever after, because Good has once more proved to triumph over Evil. And the proof is a brave young girl, whose motto is, ‘The heart goes forth when reason fails’.
The non-chronological composition weaves a beautiful cloth, into which the story of the lovers and the petrified city are skilfully interwoven as the warp and weft. In contrast to fossilised age is the bloom of youth, but children need not be aware of that. They will be enchanted by the mysterious, terrifying and moving stories and delight at the silly verses and newly-baked words in this great, timeless and ageless narrative.
By Bregje Boonstra
Publisher
Holland
Spaarne 110
NL-2011 CM Haarlem
TEL. +31 23 532 30 61
FAX +31 23 534 29 08
E-mail: info@uitgeverijholland
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Publishing details
De tuinen van Dorr (1969, 144 pp)
Biography
Paul Biegel (1925-2006) dreamed of becoming a pianist, but finally, by way of a failed law degree and a period spent in the USA, ended up as a writer for a television guide and a cartoon studio. In 1962 he debuted as a children’s author with De gouden gitaar (The Golden Guitar). A new book followed almost every year.
In the nearly forty years Paul Biegel wrote for children, he enjoyed unabated success with both readers and critics. Oblivious to passing fashions and visibly enjoying playing with language, he related his timeless tales of dwarfs, princesses, witches, robbers and talking animals. His world was that of the fairytale, with a riddle to be solved, a scraggy hero and the eternal struggle between Good and Evil.
Some of Biegel’s stories are of the adventurous, unpretentious kind, such as De kleine kapitein (The Little Captain, 1971). De tuinen van Dorr (The Gardens of Dorr, 1969), Nachtverhaal (Night Story, 1992) and De soldatenmaker (The Soldier-Maker, 1994), on the other hand, are based on great themes such as friendship and love, loneliness, fear, jealousy, death and war. Biegel’s is a unique voice in Dutch children’s literature; a ‘master narrator with a robber’s heart’, as he has been called. The language in his books shimmers and sings and the adventures he devises are breathtaking, whether they are about a princess, a dwarf or a bunch of mice. Biegel’s work earned him many awards.
Website: www.paul-biegel.com
Quotes
Paul Biegel is certainly one of the best authors of children’s books working today. One of those rare writers who – through the style, composition and “depth? of their books – manage to raise the children’s book to the level of literature.
De Volkskrant
There are some really brilliant stories in this book that are also quite humorous.
De Volkskrant
Solidly written and poetic, this fairytale-like text never seems forced.
Nieuwsblad van het noorden
Translations
- The gardens of Dorr. London: Dent & Sons, 1975
- [Dor no niwa]. Tokyo: Hayakawa Publishing, 2005
- Die Gärten von Dorr. Stuttgart; Wien: Thienemann, 1973
- Continued...
Rights sold
- Alef Yayinevi (Istanbul, Turkey)
- Urachhaus (Stuttgart, )
- Continued...