Fiction
The recently published Top 25 Fiction list of Kirkus Reviews features The Storm by Margriet de Moor. The English translation of De verdronkene was published in 2010 by Knopf and translated by Carol Brown Janeway. De Moor is praised for the composition of the novel: “It’s hard to resist using the word “symphonic” to describe this exquisitely composed, piercingly moving story. De Moor continues to scale increasingly impressive heights.” Janeway shares the honour: “Janeway’s pristine translation.”
Continued...
Fiction | News
One of the guides in the city-pick series from Oxygen Books is devoted to Amsterdam, offering a picture of the city in more than eighty translated extracts by writers including Abdelkader Benali, Alain de Botton, Albert Camus, Doeschka Meijsing, Harry Mulisch, Ian McEwan, Geert Mak, Cees Nooteboom and Simon Schama. The pieces are grouped around themes such as old Amsterdam, the Second World War, tolerance, art and water. Translator Sam Garrett wrote the introduction and Heather Reyes and Victor Schiferli selected the extracts and edited the book. Translators who worked on the collection include Patricia Gosling, Susan Massotty, Jeannette K. Ringold, Paul
Vincent, Laura Vroomen, Michele Hutchison, Adrienne Dixon, Brian Doyle and Barbara Fasting.
Fiction | News
For his novel Godenslaap (Divine Sleep) Erwin Mortier has been awarded the AKO Literature Prize 2009. The prize is one of the most important literary prizes in the Dutch-language area and consists of € 50,000.
Also nominated were Joris van Casteren (Lelystad), Joke van Leeuwen (Alles nieuw), Carolina Trujillo (De terugkeer van Lupe García), Christiaan Weijts (Via Cappello 23) and Tommy Wieringa (Caesarion).
Fiction | News
PRESS RELEASE - At last a comprehensive, up-to-date history of Dutch literature is available in English once more. For years, specialists all over the world and foreigners interested in Dutch authors have had to make do with the 1971 account in English by Meijer. Now the void has been filled by A Literary History of the Low Countries, edited by Theo Hermans, Professor of Dutch at University College London, with contributions from Frits van Oostrom, Herman Pleij, Eddy Grootes, Riet Schenkeveld, Marleen de Vries, Willem van den Berg, Ton Anbeek, Anne Marie Musschoot and Jaap Goedegebuure.
Continued...
Fiction | News | Press
[January 28: The Darkroom of Damocles is one of the 10 finalists, winner and runner-ups to be announced on February 19th]
The Darkroom of Damocles by Willem Frederik Hermans, translated from the Dutch by Ina Rilke (Overlook) is one of the 25 titles on the Best Translated Book of the Year Fiction Longlist. This list was published last week on the Three Percent website.
This award, which started last year in reaction to the lack of international titles on “best of the year” lists, was created to bring attention to the great works of international literature being published in the United States. Criteria used in selecting these titles include the quality of the work itself, along with the quality of the translation. This is the only award in America honoring international literature that is given to the book itself.
Continued...
Fiction | News
For her novel Over de liefde (About Love) Doeschka Meijsing has been awarded the AKO Literature Prize 2008. The prize is one of the most important literary prizes in the Dutch-language area and consists of € 50,000.
Continued...
Fiction | News
Of the 47,724 people who cast a vote in the NS Publieksprijs voor het Nederlandse Boek, a quarter chose the novel De overgave (Surrender) by Arthur Japin. The Prize consists of a sum of 7,500 Euro, a sculpture by Jeroen Henneman, and a first-class annual subscription for Dutch Rail.
Continued...
Fiction | News
Jan Wolkers died on 19 October 2007, at 1.30 p.m. to be precise. It was a week before his 82nd birthday. A couple of days prior to his death, when wife Katrina asked if he perhaps wanted something to eat, he had responded: ‘I have had enough.’ He subsequently fell into a deep sleep from which he never awoke. ‘I have had enough’ were the last words of a gifted, vital and versatile artist.
Continued...
Features | Fiction | News
Normally, the 10 Books from Holland and Flanders brochure only mentions recently published Dutch-language books. However, this time we made an exception for two extraordinary novels. The death of Hugo Claus provided a reason to devote attention to his novel Een zachte vernieling (Mild Destruction) dating from 1988, in which the novelist describes, with irony and qualification, the pompous zeal of a group of artists. Last year, the CPNB distributed almost a million copies of Theo Thijssen’s novel De gelukkige klas (The Happy Class) to members of public libraries in the Netherlands and to hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren, in the framework of the ‘Reading in the Netherlands’ campaign. Thijssen’s novel, in which a teacher describes everyday occurrences in his class, first appeared in 1926, but the current discussion on the level of education in the Netherlands has ensured that the theme is still very relevant.
Continued...
Features | Fiction
Ina Rilke’s translation of The Darkroom of Damocles (Harvill Secker) has been shortlisted for the Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize 2008. The Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize is for translations into English from any living European language. It aims to honour the craft of translation, and to recognise its cultural importance.
Continued...
Fiction | News
