Peter van Dongen

Peter van Dongen (b. 1966) trained as an advertising illustrator and made his debut at the age of sixteen. His breakthrough came with the award-winning graphic novel Muizentheater (Theatre of Mice, 1990), which followed the fortunes of two Amsterdam brothers during the depression of the 1930s and the Second World War. That same year, he started work on the first part of Rampokan: Java. It took a long time to research, write and draw this story and it was finally published seven years later. The second part, Rampokan: Celebes, came out in 2004. This work confirmed Van Dongen’s talent, establishing him as a graphic novelist at home and abroad. In 2011, Van Dongen completed a trilogy about boat people for the collection of the Maritime Museum in Amsterdam. In 2017 he published the graphic adaptation of Adriaan van Dis’s successful novel Familieziek (Repatriated. Heinemann, 2008).