Netflix release March 20

The Letter for the King

18 March 2020

The beloved children’s book, for which the author Tonke Dragt was awarded the State Prize for Youth Literature in 1976 and was herself knighted in 2001, tells the story of the young Tiuri, who, while keeping vigil in a chapel, is given an extremely important task.

The fate of a kingdom depends on just one person…
He must trust no one.
He must keep his true identity secret.
Above all, he must never reveal what is in the letter.

The Letter for the King

The novel was translated into English in 2013 by Laura Watkinson for Pushkin Press and became an instant success. Puskin Press did not hesitate to have the sequel, The Secrets of the Wild Wood translated as well. More youth novels by Tonke Dragt followed: The Song of Seven and last year The Goldsmith and the Master Thief. All books have been translated by Laura Watkinson, who has been awarded the binannual Vondel Translation Prize for The Letter for the Kingin 2015. By now this youth novel is well on its way to become the most translated Dutch children’s book ever, with 25 translations - ranging from Chinese, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese to Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish - published (and reprinted). Further translations in Albanian, Armenian, Danish and French are expected.

The script of The Letter for the King was written by Will Davies (How To Train Your Dragon, Johnny English, Puss in Boots). The first season of the series will be released on Netflix on March 20.

^{Official trailer of The Letter for the King by Netflix}

More information

• on Tonke Dragt (1930, Batavia, Indonesia) and her work
• Tonke Dragt at Pushkin Press
• The Letter for the King on Netflix
• Translations of De brief voor de koning in our translation database For more information on this classic or other children’s books, please contact our genre specialist: Agnes Vogt