Imme Dros

Imme Dros (Texel, 1936) studied Dutch language and literature in Amsterdam, where she met her husband, illustrator Harrie Geelen. The isolation of Texel island life and the need to make choices are recurring themes in Dros’ work. Influenced by her highly praised translation of Homer’s Odyssey (1991) she wrote some interesting youth novels related to these ancient tales. She is currently retelling a number of Greek myths.
In Annelie in the Depths of the Night (1988) these themes are interwoven into a fantasy about fear of abandonment. In De reizen van de slimme man (The Journeys of the Clever Man, 1992), De jongen met de kip (The Boy with the Chicken, 1993) and Odysseus, een man van verhalen, the themes of searching and travelling repeatedly coincide.
Her language, for younger and older children, is always careful and often poetic. Dros’ work satisfies the demands of literature, without losing its relevance for its audience, making her one of the most highly acclaimed Dutch authors of children’s books.

Annelie in the Dead of the Night

(Querido Kind, 1987, 118 pages)

The important role fantasy and symbolism play in Annelie in the Dead of the Night (1987) earn it a place of its own amongst Imme Dros’ generally realist work. Annelie is taken to her Grandmother’s by her father for unclear reasons and for an indeterminate length of time. Grandma is kind and caring and Annelie sleeps in the bedroom her mother occupied as a little girl, which is full of toys and a four-poster bed. But it doesn’t help. The only bed the little girl wants to sleep in is her own.

The Boy And The Hen

(Querido Kind, 1993, 144 pages)

De jongen met de kip (‘The Boy And The Hen’) can be read in more than one way, just as Dros’s novel Annelie In The Depths Of The Night, . As a parable about the dangers of unlimited power, as a dream in which desires are realized and as a nightmare in which everything dark and gloomy is burched together.

Odysseus, Teller of Tales

(Querido Kind, 1995, 212 pages)

Odysseus and his adventures have been a source of inspiration for Dros many times. They feature in her children’s novel De reizen van de slimme man in which a twelve-year-old boy is investigating the mystery behind the old stories which he was once told; in the much-praised metric translation of the Odyssey, also accessible to the young; in an adaptation for youth theatre; and in the idiosyncratic prose narrative Odysseus, een man van verhalen in which the son goes in search of his father, the king of Ithaca, whom he has heard about but never met.

It’s Almost my Birthday

(Querido Kind, 2005, 30 pages)

Plucky pre-schooler Ella can’t wait for her birthday and is terribly curious about the mysterious present up in the attic. When she finds a ladder leaning against the side of the house, Ella climbs up on to the roof with her friend Lucy and looks through the attic window. And then she sees her secret present, which hasn’t been wrapped yet…

And Then, Scheherazade, and Then?

(Leopold, 2017, 192 pages)

The stories from The One Thousand and One Nights have their roots in the Indian, Persian and Arab cultures. They came about in the ninth century and have travelled all over the world. Imme Dros has made a personal selection from this colourful collection of stories, rewriting thirty-one tales in an impressive, smoothly flowing metre that begs to be read aloud. Annemarie van Haeringen has created expressive pictures with a suitably eastern atmosphere to accompany the stories.