Hermine Landvreugd
Hermine Landvreugd (b. 1967) is a literary phenomenon. In the 1990s, she wrote four collections of spicy short stories for adults, including *Kont achteruit: hoerig* (Stick Your Bum Out: Tarty) in which the modern life of young women in a big city is portrayed in a fatalistic, realist manner.
After that, however, she revealed herself as a sensitive, talented children’s author, causing quite a stir with Willem is een weerwolf (Willem is a Werewolf), Koen van achter de sterren (Koen From Beyond the Stars) and Ik ben Willem! (I’m Willem!). In her children’s books life is not always as easy as it might be, but her humour, her observation and her imagination keep everything nicely in proportion. A television series was made of the first book about Willem, and it promptly won the Kinderkast Prize at Cinekid 2003. Hermine Landvreugd lives and works in Amsterdam.