Bluegrass Love in Latvia

A while ago the rights were sold, but now the physical book has been published: the translation into Latvian of The days of bluegrass love, my first young adult novel about the true, lifechanging love between Tycho Zeling and Oliver Kjelsberg.

In Latvia the book is called Zilās zāles vasara, it is published by the great publishing house of Liels un Mazs and translated by Dens Dimiņš.
The beautiful cover illustration is by Elīna Brasliņa.

I'm really proud that this book found its way to Latvia, a country that I have visited quite a few times, and that I am really fond of. I hope the book will now find its way to young Latvian readers. It can be ordered here.

Next year the American translation will be published by Levine Querido. Inquiries for new rights can be done here (Luciënne van der Leije, rights manager), and here you can find a special of the Dutch Literature Fund about this book. 

THE DAYS OF BLUEGRASS LOVE to...

I fell in love with Latvia almost twenty years ago. I made friends there, I got to visit the country at least five times, and now I have a wonderful reason to go back: my young adult novel The days of bluegrass love (in Dutch: De dagen van de bluegrassliefde) will be published in Latvian in 2020. By the best Latvian publishing house: Liels un Mazs.

This novel, about the glowing love between two eighteen-year old boys, Tycho and Oliver, is one of the three books I wrote about them over the years. It is also one of the titles that brought me the most, personally and as a writer, especially because of the number of reactions I received, both from The Netherlands and Belgium as from Germany, where it was also published. 

The book received the Golden Kiss Award (best book for youth) and is still in reprint in The Netherlands, I'm pretty grateful for that as well. 

But now: on to Latvia! Huge thanks to the Latvian publisher, the wonderful Alise Nigale, and also to Kristine Jonusa and Andrejs Viksna.