News

The Evenings

Reve revisited

22 December 2016 - International

“It was still dark, in the early morning hours of the twenty-second of December 1946, on the second floor of the house at Schilderskade 66 in our town, when the hero of this story, Frits van Egters, awoke.” Almost seventy years after this fact of fiction, the Dutch postwar classic De avonden has awoken in the minds of English readers, and how! Thanks to the the superb translation by Sam Garrett and raving reviews Pushkin Press managed to sell 14,000 copies of The Evenings. A Winter’s Tale - so far. The U.S. edition will follow soon, in 2017.

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High Impact

Literature from the Low Countries in London

15 December 2016 - Events and International

January the 17th, Dutch and UK writers come together to perform in one of the most exciting venues in London, The Tabernacle. Join best-selling authors Herman Koch and David Nicholls along with a host of all-star writers from the Netherlands and a cabaret-style evening of High Impact entertainment: readings, chat, music, food and drink.

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Longlist IMPAC Award

Five Dutch novels on longlist

23 November 2016 - Awards

Five Dutch novels have been selected for the €100,000 IMPAC Award 2017. The award is presented annually for a novel either written in English or translated into English. If the winning book is an English translation, €75,000 is awarded to the author and €25,000 to the translator.

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ECI Literature Prize awarded to Martin Driessen

Two awards

11 November 2016 - Awards and Authors

The ECI Literature Prize 2016, worth 50,000 euro and one of the most prestigious of Dutch literary prizes, has been awarded to Martin Michael Driessen for Rivieren (Rivers). He won not just the prize from the jury of professional critics but the new readers’ award as well, organized by quality newspapers NRC and De Standaard.

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Guest of Honour programme an important boost to the further spread of Dutch-language literature

This is what we share - Dies ist, was wir teilen

1 November 2016 - Press releases, International, Events and General

The Dutch Foundation for Literature and the Flemish Literature Fund look back with satisfaction on the success of the Flemish-Dutch Guest of Honour programme at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which ended on Sunday. Both directors are pleased with the results already achieved, with more translations than a Guest of Honour has ever generated before and huge media attention in Germany for Dutch-language authors, translators and illustrators. They stress, however, that the process of realizing a second ambition begins only now: the Guest of Honour programme at Frankfurt will give an important boost to the international appeal and further spread of Dutch-language literature internationally in the future.

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German Children’s Literature Award for Van de Vendel

23 October 2016 - Translators and Authors

Dutch author Edward van de Vendel, Flemish illustrator Anton Van Hertbruggen and German translator Rolf Erdorf have won a German Children’s Literature Award in the picture book category for the German translation (Bohem Press) of The Dog that Nino Didn’t Have (De Eenhoorn, 2013).

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The Netherlands and Flanders guest of honour 2.0 in Frankfurt

13 October 2016

On 18 October, the Dutch King Willem-Alexander and the Belgian King Filip and Queen Mathilde open, in the presence of the Flemish Prime Minister and the Dutch Minister of Culture, the guest-of-honour pavilion at the Frankfurt Book Fair, where Flanders and the Netherlands will be presenting their culture and literature to a German and international public. This is the culmination of a great project that the Netherlands Foundation for Literature and the Flemish Literature Fund have been working hard on for almost four years.

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Dutch and Belgian monarchs to jointly open Dutch-Flemish Pavilion

Frankfurt Book Fair

10 October 2016 - General

Under the slogan Dit is wat we delen (‘This is what we share’), Flanders and the Netherlands will present over 70 authors at the Book Fair and various other venues in and around the city of Frankfurt. In the run-up to the Fair, over 300 German translations will be published of literary and other works in Dutch. These translations will encompass a multitude of genres, by a wide range of classic and contemporary authors.

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Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis 2016

Edward van den Vendel and Erna Sassen nominated

2 October 2016 - Authors

Both Edward van den Vendel and Erna Sassen have been nominated for the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis 2016.

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Dutch Foundation for Literature’s Translation Prizes 2016

Alicja Oczko, Harm Damsma and Niek Miedema awarded

30 September 2016 - Press releases, Translators and Awards

On the name day of St. Jerome, patron saint of all translators, we are pleased to announce the winners of the Dutch Foundation for Literature’s Translation Prizes 2016. This year the prizes go to Alicja Oczko (Dutch – Polish) and the duo Harm Damsma and Niek Miedema (English – Dutch). The prizes will be presented on Friday 9 December in Amsterdam. A sum of 10,000 euro is awarded to the winner of each prize.

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Record number of ‘Neuerscheinungen’

Dies ist was wir teilen

14 September 2016 - International

Never before has the Frankfurt Book Fair seen a guest-of-honour country manage to clock up so many translations in the run-up to the fair. The tally for translations into German of books from and about the Netherlands and Flanders, varying from travel guides and art books to literature, has exeeded the 450 mark.

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Death of Pieter Steinz

30 August 2016 - Press releases and General

Pieter Steinz passed away yesterday, at the age of fifty-two, in his home town, Haarlem. He was suffering from ALS, a progressive muscular disease with which he was diagnosed in 2013. He gradually laid aside his tasks as director of the Dutch Foundation for Literature but remained closely involved with the Foundation’s activities. He also published several successful books: Made in Europe (2014), Lezen met ALS (2015), and in 2015 the Book Week essay Waanzin in de wereldliteratuur. In that same year a completely revised edition appeared of Lezen Etcetera, first published twelve years earlier, with the title Steinz – Gids voor de wereldliteratuur. He wrote this ‘Dikke Steinz’ (‘The Thick Steinz’), as it became known, along with his daughter Jet Steinz.

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German press visits the Netherlands and Flanders

Guest of honour FBM16

22 August 2016 - International and General

In the run up to the Netherlands and Flanders being Guest of Honour at the Frankfurter Buchmesse, the Dutch and the Flemish Foundations for Literature will receive no less than 35 German journalists from 20 till 28 August. All media will be represented: radio, television, newspapers, magazines, trade journals, and bloggers. In just a few days, the journalists will meet many writers, illustrators, publishers and (literary) organizations. No less than 120 authors/artists are involved in the three presstours, spread over 75 events at various (historic) locations in Amsterdam, Antwerp and Ghent.

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Winner of the European Literature Prize 2016

‘Zeldzame aarden’ by Sandro Veronesi

6 July 2016 - Press releases

A professional jury under the leadership of Margot Dijkgraaf has awarded the European Literature Prize 2016 to the Italian author Sandro Veronesi and his Dutch translator Rob Gerritsen for the novel Zeldzame aarden (‘Rare Earths’), Prometheus, 2015. The announcement was made on the radio programme Opium on NPO 4.

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Arnon Grunberg and Charlotte van den Broeck to open Frankfurt Book Fair

28 June 2016 - Press releases

The Frankfurter Buchmesse opens on the evening of Tuesday 18 October, when the official presentation of the Netherlands and Flanders as guest of honour begins with the motto, ‘This Is What We Share’. Not one, but two authors will be representing the guest of honour country. For the Netherlands, the renowned author, actor and columnist Arnon Grunberg will take to the stage, while Flanders will be presenting the youngest guest country speaker in the history of the trade fair, in the person of Charlotte van den Broeck.

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Pieter Steinz’s ‘Der Sinn des Lesens’

Reading with ALS

15 June 2016 - Translators, International and Authors

Today former managing director of the Dutch Foundation for Literature, Pieter Steinz received the very first copies of Der Sinn Des Lesens, the German translation of his book Lezen met ALS (Reading with ALS). It will be available in German bookstores mid July. Sooner than expected, as the title was announced for August. Thanks to translator Gerd Busse and to Reclam Verlag the production process was shortened.

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Dutch Olympic cultural programme in Rio de Janeiro

8 June 2016 - Press releases, Events, International and Authors

In the period leading up to the Olympic Games, the Dutch cultural programme HOBRA will be held in Rio de Janeiro from 11 to 31 July. Ten Dutch and ten Brazilian artists and other creative professionals will form teams of 2. Each duo will create a new work within three weeks. The results will be presented to the Brazilian and international public during a large-scale concluding event.

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All Van Gogh’s letters translated into Chinese

27 May 2016 - General and Press releases

The Chinese translation of the complete correspondence of Vincent van Gogh is published today in Shanghai. The Chinese publisher of Vincent van Gogh – The Letters, Shanghai Fine Arts Publisher, organized a celebratory presentation.

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Festival in Cologne entirely devoted to children’s and YA literature from the Netherlands and Flanders

This is what we share - Dies ist, was wir teilen

24 May 2016 - Press releases and International

This year’s International Children’s and Young Adult Book Weeks in Cologne (KiBuWo), from 25 May through 12 June, are entirely devoted to literature from the Netherlands and Flanders. During the festival, ten authors will be giving bilingual readings, and there are theatre performances as well as a children’s book cinema with work read aloud and films including Minoes, Erik of het klein insectenboek and Labyrinthus. Simultaneously the exhibition ‘Schau mich an’ opens in the Museum für Angewandte Kunst, showing work by Toon Tellegen and Ingrid Godon combined with photographs by August Sander.

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Comics festival Erlangen focuses on Flanders and the Netherlands

18 May 2016 - Press releases, Events, International and Authors

More than ten Dutch-language graphic novelists have been invited to the 17th International Comic-Salon Erlangen, the most important international comic festival in Germany. Recent work by all the authors has been translated into German. Flemish and Dutch graphic novels will be featured in two exhibitions, a live drawing workshop, a special magazine, ‘Parade’ that will be printed on the spot on the Risograph and in loads of readings and encounters.

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Hanneke de Jong wins Simke Kloosterman Prize

16 April 2016 - Awards and Authors

Friesian author Hanneke de Jong has won the Simke Kloosterman Prize 2016 with her youth novel Trettjin dagen om in spetterjend feest te organisearjen. The prize is awarded once every three years for the best Frisian youth or children’s book.

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Autorenresidenz

Mirna Funk, Ilija Trojanow, Frank Witzel and Valerie Fritsch in Amsterdam

8 April 2016 - Press releases and General

In 2016, the year in which the Netherlands and Flanders are ‘Ehrengast’ at the Frankfurter Buchmesse, the Dutch Foundation for Literature invited six German-speaking writers in the writers residence in Amsterdam. Currently author and journalist Mirna Funk resides in Amsterdam until half May. She will be followed up by Ilija Trojanow, Frank Witzel and Valerie Fritsch.

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US tour Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer

Presenting La Superba

10 March 2016 - Translators, Events, International and Authors

Dutch author Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer will be on book tour in March visiting Washington DC, New York, Houston and Dallas to present the English translation of his novel La Superba. The book was translated by Michele Hutchinson and published by Deep Vellum.

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Es geht los!

Guest of honour programme kicks off in Germany, coinciding with the opening of Dutch Book Week

9 March 2016 - International, Authors and General

Appearances today, 10 March, by Saskia de Coster and Connie Palmen at the literary festival lit.Cologne mark the start of an extensive range of literary programmes presenting the Netherlands and Flanders as joint guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair. In total more than 120 Flemish and Dutch authors will make appearances in seven German cities. The kick-off in Cologne coincides with the opening of Book Week in the Netherlands.

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Subsidy for two literary games

Literature and games come together in innovative productions

22 January 2016 - Press releases, Authors and General

The Game Fund and the Dutch Foundation for Literature are jointly subsidizing two literary games. Flemish writer Joost Vandecasteele is collaborating with indie game studio Happy Volcano to create a game in which the gameplay determines the course of a dark story. In the game ‘Puzzling Poetry’ by Studio Louter and poet Lucas Hirsch, players transform poems.

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Hans Christian Andersen Award

Ted van Lieshout and Marit Törnqvist on the shortlist

21 January 2016 - Awards

Ted van Lieshout and Marit Törnqvist are on the shortlist of the Hans Christian Andersen Award 2016, the highest international recognition for authors and illustrators of children’s books. This is the second nomination for Van Lieshout, who was also nominated in 2014. He now shares his nomination with authors Cao Wenxuan (China), Louis Jensen (Denmark), Mirjam Pressler (Germany) and Lois Lowry (USA).

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Phares du Nord for Isabelle Rosselin

Translator of Herman Koch awarded

18 January 2016 - Press releases and Awards

This year the Prix des Phares du Nord has been awarded to Isabelle Rosselin for Villa avec piscine, the French translation of Herman Koch’s novel Zomerhuis met zwembad (Summer House with Swimming Pool). The jury was composed of Danielle Bourgois, translator Alain Van Crugten and literary critic Margot Dijkgraaf.

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Grants 2015

13 January 2016 - Grants awarded and General

All in 2015 awarded Translation Grants (and other grants) can be found in the annual report of the Dutch Foundation for Literature.

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Press

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