RUNNING DEER AT THE DEUTSCHE OPER IN BERLIN

Illustrator Mattias De Leeuw and me made THIRTEEN RUNNING DEER (DERTIEN RENNENDE HERTJES). It was translated into German by Rolf Erdorf, was published by publishing house Gerstenberg and now the famous Deutsche Oper company in Berlin will make a music theatre performance out of it! There will be music by Händel, Purcell, Monteverdi and Hanusa, and there will be puppeteers. The play, which is called DAS GEHEIMNIS DER BLAUEN HIRSCHE ('The secret of the blue deer'), will premiere November 4.
More info here.  

The book was originally published at De Eenhoorn.
Rights - so far - were sold to Germany (Gerstenberg), China (Petrel), Taiwan (Interminds) and South-Korea (Lime).
Rights can be optioned here,
and for translation and production grants: the Dutch Translation Fund made a special on this book - here. 

VOTE FOR THE OKAPI WON THE WP AWARD!

Last week my book STEM OP DE OKAPI, which translates as VOTE FOR THE OKAPI, got a very nice award: the prestigious Woutertje Pieterse Prijs, which is given to the best literary children's book of the year, chosen by a professional jury. The award is for both the text and the images, which were made by the amazing Martijn van der Linden. It was published in Holland by Querido.

The book is promoted by the Dutch Literary Fund, so foreign publishers could apply for translation and production grants here.

For years the okapi has been my favourite animal. This animal that is shy and majestic at the same time, that was discovered only 100 years ago (in Congo), and that bears zebrastripes as well as horns - but actually its only familymember is the giraffe.
In this fullcolour book, that illustrator Martijn van der Linden and me have been working on for years, we present 88 reasons to take the okapi as your new preferred animal. The book has nine chapters, and each chapter is different. In the first one we describe the okapi from head to toe, in another one we follow an okapi-zookeeper for some (dramatic) years, there are chapters with just okapi-illustrations, there is one with 4 okapi-poems, there is the okapi museum, in which we collect okapi-pictures (made by many leading illustrators, especially for this book).
It's a book full of passion, it's a book that provides you with everything that there is to know about the okapi, it's funny and light, it's serious and informative, we hope we have convinced you at the end to keep an eye on the shy and majestic animals ánd people around us...

SAM ENTERS FRANCE

My book TOEN KWAM SAM now came out in France. The French translation, for the publishing house of L'école des loisirs, was made by Maurice Lomré.
This is the fifteenth edition of the book, after the original one (Querido, Amsterdam), the eleven editions in South-Africa, and the ones in Estonia (Päike ja Pilv) and Germany (Carlsen).

All the editions also show the beautiful illustrations, made by Philip Hopman. Later this year the American edition will be issued (Eerdmans).
A big thank you to all publishers!

OLIVER WINS

Yesterday my book OLIVER was awarded with the Golden Frame 2016, which is the jury's prize for the best book for youth. It was a great surprise, and I'm very, very grateful.

This book, about the 16-year old Oliver who had a comfortable life, but suddenly is confronted with all kinds of things that shake up his entire existence, is the third book that I wrote about the Dutch Tycho and the Norwegian Oliver. The books are stand-alones, but could also be read as a series.
Back in 2000 the first book THE DAYS OF BLUEGRASSLOVE, got the same award (which then was called The Golden Kiss), as did the second book, OUR THIRD BODY, in 2007.

Translation rights to OLIVER are not sold yet, please contact Luciënne van der Leije for that.
The Dutch Literature Fund could support foreign publishers for the translation costs.  

Copyright Marco de Swart

NINO NOMINATED

Delightful news: the German version of the picturebook that illustrator Anton Van Hertbruggen and I made, THE DOG THAT NINO DIDN'T HAVE, is nominated for the German Literature Award.

This Award nominates six books in every category: picture book, children's book, books for youth and non-fiction. The nominations were announced at the Leipzig Book Fair and the winners will be announced in October, at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

DER HUND DEN NINO NICHT HATTE (original title: HET HONDJE DAT NINO NIET HAD) was published by Bohem Press, in Germany, and translated by Rolf Erdorf. The book was originally published by De Eenhoorn, that also sells the rights. Rights were sold for the English, the French, the Chinese, the Brazilian Portuguese, the Korean and the Danish versions.  

The book and the illustrator already got awards in Belgium, the Netherlands, France and the United States. Last year LENA UND DAS GEHEIMNIS DER BLAUEN HIRSCHE, (THIRTEEN RUNNING DEER) by Mattias De Leeuw and me (also translated by Rolf Erdorf) was nominated for the German Literature Award. More about the nominees of this year can be read here.

SOFIE IN ISRAEL

It came out just now: the Hebrew version of our book SOFIE AND THE PENGUINS (SOFIE EN DE PINGUÏNS). This is my first book in Israël and I'm happy that Rimonim Publishing noticed the book. Thanks! Also a big thank you to Irit Golan, who translated the book.

SOFIE AND THE PENGUINS is illustrated by Floor de Goede and contains photocomics by Ype+Willem. The book originally was published by Querido, Amsterdam. The book is the first of a series of books that contain a story, illustrations, comics ánd non-fiction elements.

The rights to this book were also sold to Italy (Il Castoro) and Estonia (Päike ja Pilv). It got children's jury prizes both in Holland and in Belgium.

NEWS ABOUT SAM

The dog that gave me two books, Sam, is still alive (well, the real one isn't, sadly enough). The two books (SAM SHOWED UP and SAMS MYSTERIES) were bundled into one big Sam-book, the new cover goes hereby. The books were issued by Querido and contain of course all the original illustrations by the great Philip Hopman.

Apart from that, the Estonian Organisation for Child Care, chose their 'best books of the year'. Among those picks was the Estonian translation by Kerti Tergem of the first book, SAM SHOWED UP (KOER NIMEGA SAM, published by Päike Ja Pilv).

The rights of the first book so far were sold for these languages:
French
German
Estonian
English (USA)
and all eleven languages of the Republic of South-Africa.

The second book:
German
Estonian.

The Dutch Literature Fund gives grants for spreading the book into even more countries. This can be checked here. Also on that page: a sample translation into English (by David Colmer) of the first book.