New books travelling to the United States

Fantastic news: the new publishing house of Levine Querido, directed by the legendary Arthur Levine will devote a small segment of its program to books that were originally published by Querido Amsterdam. I'm really, really proud to announce that already in the company's first programs two of my books will be presented.

First of all the book I made with Marije Tolman will be translated. It's called Vosje which in the US-version will be Red Fox. David Colmer will be translating. This English edition succeeds the French, German, Russian and Italian editions.

But that's not the only book Levine Querido will publish. In the spring of 2012 there will be an English version of my Young Adult novel about the first passionate love between Tycho and Oliver, two eighteen year old European boys, who meet in Knoxville, Tennessee.

The book, which will be called Days of Bluegrass Love, (in Dutch: De dagen van de bluegrassliefde) was first published in 1999, with an updated version in 2015. Besides the United States the book will also be published in Latvia soon, by the way. I'm so thrilled by all this! Thanks to everyone involved.

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.

Best Seven

The German translation of THE CANCERCHAMPIONSHIP FOR JUNIORS, the book that I wrote with Roy Looman (it's based on the story of his life) was chosen as one of the Besten Sieben in December 2016 (the seven best children's and young adultbooks, chosen by 29 jurors from Germany, Austria and Switzerland). That's a big honour!
The book was translated by Rolf Erdorf and in German it's called KREBSMEISTERSCHAFT FÜR ANFÄNGER (Carlsen Verlag).

The rights for this book can be seen here.
This book is promoted by the Dutch Literary Fund, so foreign publishers could apply for translation and production grants here.