GERMAN BLUEGRASS ON STAGE

All authors google themselves, everyone knows thát! So did I, this morning, and I found out that there have been some amateur stagings of a play after my book THE DAYS OF BLUEGRASSLOVE. In Germany, in the city of Pfaffenhofen.
The play was an adaptation by Sven. J. Ohlsson, the German edition of my book was published by Carlsen, translated by the great translator Rolf Erdorf.
I hope the audience enjoyed these nights!
More here.

NOMINATED FOR THE HCA

Ooh - this just happened: I will be nominated for the 2018 Hans Christian Andersen Award. This (quote) is 'the highest international recognition given to an author and an illustrator of children's books. Every other year IBBY presents the Andersen Award to a living author and illustrator whose complete works have made a lasting contribution to children's literature. The Author's Award has been given since 1956 and the Illustrator's Award since 1966. The Award consists of a gold medal and a diploma, presented at a festive ceremony during the biennial IBBY Congress.'

Each year almost 30 authors and 30 illustrators are nominated. The last years saw Dutch author Ted van Lieshout and Marit Törnqvist shortlisted!.
For 2018 the Dutch IBBY (International Board on Books for Young people) also chose fantastic illustrator Thé Tjong-Khing as a nominee.
I'm very thankful for this nomination, and honoured. It's a delight! Thanks to the Dutch IBBY-section, and to my wonderful publishing houses Querido and De Eenhoorn.

VOTE FOR THE OKAPI WON THE ZILVEREN GRIFFEL!

It's the best known children's books award in The Netherlands: the annual Zilveren Griffel (Silver Slate). Up to ten of these awards are given each year, in different categories, by a professional jury. One of these awards will be turned into a Golden one during the Children's book week in October.

This year my book STEM OP DE OKAPI (VOTE FOR THE OKAPI) won a Zilveren Griffel in the non-fiction-category. I am very grateful for that. Martijn van der Linden, the fantastic illustrator of this book, received a Vlag en Wimpel (Honorary mention) for the artwork.
The book was published by Querido in Amsterdam.

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...

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