Iperborea recently published an Italian translation of Tumbas by Cees Nooteboom. The book, in which Nooteboom travels to see the graves of poets and thinkers all over the world, has been very well received in the Italian newspapers.

The ECI Literature Award 2015 has been awarded to Jeroen Brouwers for The Wood. With this award the jury honours the ‘command of the language’ on display in Brouwers’ stylistic tour de force about a young teacher’s struggle to escape a brutal boarding school regime. Weissbooks will publish a German translation (by Christiane Kuby) of the novel in the autumn of 2016.

In the run-up to the Frankfurt Book Fair 2016, where the Netherlands and Flanders will be guest of honour, an impressive list of German translations is in preparation.

Although still a year away, the Frankfurt Book Fair 2016 is already bearing fruit for the Netherlands and Flanders, which will be joint guest of honour. German publishers are planning more translations of Dutch literature next year than ever before, with some 250 titles in all genres currently in preparation.

The 2015 Libris History Prize has been awarded to Alexander Münninghoff for Heir and Successor, his account of the stirring history of his family. According to the jury the award is bestowed upon a book that ‘is well written, moving and it takes you off guard’.

The Golden Slate Pencil (Gouden Griffel) has been awarded to Bette Westera at the opening ceremony of the Dutch Children’s Book Week. It is the first time since 20 years that this prestigious prize for children’s literature goes to a poetry book. For Dead Simple (Doodgewoon, Gottmer Publishers), written by Westera and illustrated by Sylvia Weve, it is is the third award this year. It also received the Woutertje Pieterse Prize 2015, and a ‘Zilveren Griffel’ and ‘Vlag & Wimpel’.

The jury of the Vondel Translation Prize 2015 has awarded the prize jointly to Laura Watkinson for The Letter for the King, her translation into English of De brief voor de koning by Tonke Dragt, and to Donald Gardner for In Those Days, his translation into English of a selection of poetry by Remco Campert. The jury was made up of British critic Paul Binding and translators David Colmer (Australia) and David McKay (US).

Adriaan van Dis (1946) has been awarded the Constantijn Huygens-prijs 2015, an important Dutch oeuvre award. His wide-ranging oeuvre consists of poems, novels, stories, plays, and essays.

The European Literature Prize 2015 goes to Een handvol sneeuw (The End of Days) by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated into Dutch by Elly Schippers. This was announced today in the radio programme Opium on 4 by Margot Dijkgraaf, chairwoman of the jury. The prize awards both author and translator of the winning novel, the author receives €10.00 and the translator €5.000.

The German newsmagazine Die Zeit and Radio Bremen have awarded Anna Woltz the July LUCHS-award for her young-adult novel Meine wunderbar seltsame Woche mit Tess, translated in German by Andrea Kluitmann and published by Carlsen Verlag.

The film version of Belcampo’s The Surprise is in the running for the Parel (Pearl) Audience Award for the best literary adaptation. Of the six films nominated, it is the only one based on the work of a Dutch-language author.

In the year in which the Netherlands and Flanders will jointly present themselves as guests of honour at the Frankfurter Buchmesse, the Dutch Boekenweek (Bookweek) aims at Germany, under the motto Was Ich nog zu sagen hätte. This was reported today by CPNB in a press release.

This year, the Poesiefestival Berlin has invited six Dutch-speaking poets from the Netherlands and Flanders to participate in the VERSschmuggel (“verse smuggle”) translation workshop.

Tommy Wieringa’s Questi sono nomi (These are the names, translated by Claudia Di Palermo and Claudia Cozzi for Iperborea) and Stefan Hertmans’s Guerra e trementina (Oorlog en terpentijn, translated by Laura Pignatti, for Marsilio) feature both on the Premio Strega Europeo shortlist.

For his novel I will return Adriaan van Dis has been awarded the Libris Literature Reward, the most prestigious annual award for Dutch novels. I will return explores the relationship between a writer and his 98-year-old mother. As the always distant mother approaches the end of her life she is persuaded to open up about the hardships which plagued her life. She makes a deal with her son, she tells him her life-story and he will provide her with a peaceful death through pills.

The Wouterje Pieterse Prize 2015, one of the most prestigious prizes for Dutch children’s and youth literature, has been awarded to writer Bette Westera and illustrator Sylvia Weve for Doodgewoon (‘Dead Simple’). The jury praised their unique approach to the central theme of this illustrated poetry collection: death in all its aspects.

Each year the London Book Fair hands out awards in a number of categories as part of its International Excellence Awards program. We’re very proud to announce that the Dutch Foundation for Literature has made the shortlist for this year’s International Literary Translation Initiative Award.

No less than four German translations of Dutch-language children’s books are nominated for the prestigious Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis.

In the February 20th edition of TLS, writer Claire Lowdon praises Tommy Wieringa’s These Are the Names, the third of his novels to be translated into English. She compares the novel favourably to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road:

In The Independent blogger Ann Morgan recommends Cees Nooteboom’s Rituals as one of the ten foreign books we should all read.

Mikis and the Donkey by Dutch author Bibi Dumon Tak and illustrator Philip Hopman and translated by Laura Watkinson is the winner of the 2015 Mitchelder L. Batcheler Award. Dumon Tak, Hopman and Watkinson have the pleasure of receiving this prize - given to the most outstanding children’s book originally published in a language other than English in a country other than the United States - for the second time. Soldier Bear, published in Dutch as Soldaat Wojtek, won the 2012 Batchelder Award.

From January the 19th until the 23rd 10 German fiction publishers visited the Netherlands and Flanders for an extensive tour through the literature landscape of the Low Countries. During this tour the German publishers presented their publishing houses.

Last Thursday, author Maartje Wortel won the BNG Bank Literature prize. She receives the oeuvre award for young talent for her novel IJstijd.

Journalist and author Geert Mak is the recipient of the 2015 Gouden Ganzenveer (golden feather quill). The Academy honours Mak for his extraordinary engagement in both national and international history. The award will be presented to Mak on the 16th of April in Amsterdam.

Maartje Wortel will stay as a writer in residence at the Van Eyck Academy in Maastricht for a period of two months. The writer in residence programme is a joint initiative of the Dutch Foundation for Literature and the Van Eyck Academy.

On Friday 12 December 2015 Edgar de Bruin was awarded the Dutch Foundation for Literature’s Translation Prize for the translator as cultural ambassador. His oeuvre demonstrates his sharp eye for modern Czech literature; he has introduced writers including Petra Hůlová, Jáchym Topol, Patrik Ouředník and Markéta Pilatová to a Dutch readership.