The website of Ted van Lieshout

Five new books published... Spin op sokken (Spider on Socks)... 4...Twee ons liefde (Two Ounces of Love)... Kwam dat zien! Kwam dat zien! (Welcame!Welcame!)... and Ik ben een held (I am a hero)!....

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News

Five new books just have been published! Spin op sokken (Spider on Socks) is poetry for young children with drawings by Sieb Posthuma and published by Leopold, Amsterdam. Leopold has also published my new poetry picture book Twee ons liefde (Two Ounces of Love), which is a small book in full colour with brand new poems for only 5,95! Rijksmuseum/Nieuw Amsterdam published the next volume in the series about the art of the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum: 4 (the last book was 3, 1 and 2 have yet to follow!). Querido has published Kwam dat zien! Kwam dat zien! (Welcame! Welcame!), a collection of poetry by different poets, selected and arranged by me. And last but not least: Ik ben een held (I am a hero) has been republished by New Amsterdam.
If the pictures don't appear, check: www.tedvanlieshout.com.

Ik en de koningin (I and the Queen) has been turned into a small musical. The premiere was on November 1st 2008. On that occasion on of my best read books was republished: Ik ben een held (I am a Hero) by Nieuw Amsterdam.

Gebr. (Brothers) celibrated its 10th anniversary in 2006. There are plans for a movie and in Germany wonderfool theater has turned the book into a play which premiered in June in Stuttgart.
(1996-2006). See all 15 covers of Brothers:

here!

My latest books,Papieren Museum 3 published by Leopold, Ik en de koningin (I and the queen, published by Nieuw Amsterdam) and Van Ansjovis tot Zwijntje (ABC-book about animals, published by Leopold), are doing very well. Very well indeed. The reviews are excellent, and readers are happy with their purchase. Not in the least because the drawings Sieb Postuma made for Van Ansjovis tot Zwijntje are so gorgeous.

The Canadian version of Goochelaar! has been published by Annick Press. Uncle Gus's Magic Box is a funny, exciting story for early readers and for adults about a boy inheriting a magic box. The very first trick goes terribly wrong! - "A magic bequest brings outrageously funny resuolts - and a lot of togetherness." The English version too has wonderful drawings too by

Philip Hopman!
(Original Dutch ISBN 90 00 03582 1; English version hardback ISBN 1 55037 934 8 paperback ISBN 1 55037 935 6)

Letter from abroad to the publisher of my new book Mama! Waar heb jij het geluk gelaten?:
'What an achievement! No one anywhere is producing anything like his work or can match it for conception, wit, intelligence, thoughtfulness, cleverness, skill of design, integration of words and pictures, absence of sentimentality while fully charged with emotion.
It is such a pity Ted's picture-books-of-poetry and these (I call them) galleries of pictures and texts are not available everywhere, especially in English.
I do hope The Dutch appreciate what a gift they have in Ted and what gifts he gives them. Children and young people - in fact anyone - who reads his books will be more than they were before and something they couldn't be without Ted's work. He deserves every prize and honour going. He certainly ought to be given the Andersen. He is a master of his art and of the form. I have so much enjoyed watching him grow and his work develop: and every time he produces something unique and worth every ounce of the effort and time he puts into every book. Others could learn many good lessons from his uncompromising dedication and hard work.'
-Reviewer wishes to remain anonymous.

This is my new book. It's called Mama! Waar heb jij het geluk gelaten? (Mum! What have you done with happiness?), poems and pictures about states of mind, from great sorrow to endless happiness.
The reviews are very good, but not available in English.

In August and September of 2004 two books were published. One by Leopold: Papieren Museum 2 (Paper Museum 2), an anthology of poems by other poets, illustrated by myself. Paper Museum 2 was praised highly by the jury of the annual Woutertje Pieterse Award 2005.

The second has been published by Van Goor and is called: Goochelaar! (Uncle Gus's Magic Box), a story for young children about a boy who inherits a conjurer's box, but the first trick goes terribly wrong!
Illustrated by

Philip Hopman.

German Publisher Middelhauve went bankrupt. Suddenly all my books in German, quite a few, disappeared. Only few copies could be found here and there.
Publisher Beltz & Gelberg tried to rescue what was left of the mess, and now, finally, Bruder is available again! A brand new cover, but it will still be the same story, translated by life time award - Deutscher Bücherpreis 2004! - winning Mirjam Pressler. Bruder itself won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis 1999.
(ISBN 3.407.78620.4)

The Korean version of Gebr. next to the Swedish - yellow - cover of Gebr.: Bröder. The translation is by young Kenneth von Zeipel; he read the book first in German and Dutch, got in contact with me, and then interested Swedish publisher Eriksson & Lindgren (ISBN 91-87803-58-5).
Frère has won the Prix Farniente 2003! Adolescents in Belgium could vote for any of six nominated books, and almost 800 did. My book, french translation of Gebr. by Véronique Roelandt, won! There's no money involved, but I'm delighted as it is.

Read more about it in French!
Gebr. has now gathered four awards in four countries and a nomination in a fifth: in Great Britain the english translation was nominated for the Marsh Award. Helas, translator Lance Salway didn't win.
Still no news from Spain! Nor from Finland. But some one in Great Britain is turning Brothers into a play for the theatre.

Published in 2003: Luitje, Wimper & Pipet is an omnibus of three earlier stories: Luitje en de limonademoeder, De winkel van Wimper and Kind te huur (Van Goor, ISBN 90.00.03461.2).

Also published: Jij bent mijn mooiste landschap, over 300 poems and drawings (ISBN 90.258.3740.9)! The comments and reviews are very good.

Paper Museum, published in 2002 by Leopold (ISBN 90.258.3561.9), was nominated for the Flanders award Gouden Uil (Golden Owl). The book is a combination of poetry and stories about art, as well as a variety of art work. The Paper Museum has in its collection a never before shown painting by Mondriaan, the painting Van Gogh and Ingres made together, and much, much more.
Aidan Chambers in his Personal Column on his website (

Aidan Chambers): "A note to Dutch-language readers. Ted van Lieshout has produced another of his extraordinary art books. This one is called Papieren Museum (Paper Museum), Leopold. The idea is that the book is an art gallery, which Van Lieshout guides you through, page by page - room by room - showing you the pictures, most of which are by great artists both ancient and modern, some of which are his own, while he comments on them, sometimes in prose, sometimes in his own poems. Nothing anywhere that I've come across matches the intelligence, inventiveness of design, the sensitivity and the humour of the text, and the respect Van Lieshout pays to pictorial art of all kinds with wit and even cheekiness. It pains me that we cannot have this book - and Van Lieshout's previous picturebooks of poetry and art - in English. And I'm astonished at how little attention has been paid in the Dutch media to this latest book by such an unrivalled author-and-artist. Do yourself a favour: go out and buy a copy. No, buy two: one for yourself and one for a young reader from 10 years old up."

Fratelli, the Italian translation of Gebr. has been published by AER. Laura Pignatti took care of the translation. Remarkable: nothing is written on the back of the book (ISBN 8887435170).

Lars S. Vikør's Norwegian translation of Gebr.,

Bror, has won the oversetterpremie 2001, the award for best translation of children's and youth literature in Norway! Lance Salway was nominated for the Marsh Award 2003 for his English translation of Gebr.: Brothers, but one of the other four nominees got the actual award.

The Estonian translation of Gebr.!

Vennad, Andrus Simsel's translation, has been published by Steamark (ISBN: 9985.9374.3.0).

Quite a new experience for me is the fact, that now that there is an English translation of Gebr., the reading audience has widened a lot. Brothers has been signalized in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and a reader from Pakistan wrote: "One Of The Finest Books. This Book is truly amazing. Just bought it yesterday and i'm glad i did."

Frère, the French translation of my Dutch book Gebr. has been published by La Joie de Lire from Switzerland. To make it even more international: the translation was in the hands of Véronique Roelandt from Belgium.
Depuis six mois, Marius est mort, demain il aurait eu 15 ans. Afin de faire le deuil de son départ, sa mère vide sa chambre. Elle a l'intention de brûler toutes ses affaires dans le jardin. Pour Luc, le frère de Marius, cette décision est inacceptable. Il fouille dans les papiers de son frère pour trouver son journal intime. Il commence à écrire à partir des premières pages vides en se disant qu'ainsi sa mère n'osera plus le brûler. Ses notes se mêlant à celles de son frère mort forment un dialogue secret qui révèle ce qu'ils avaient toujours cherché à cacher.
For quite some time there was only a German translation available of Gebr. (Van Goor, 1996). When that translation, Bruder (Middelhauve, 1998), had won the German Youth Literature Award 1999, more translations followed.
France ISBN 2882582064; Norway ISBN 8252157300; Estonia ISBN 9985937430

The Danish translation by Mette Jokumsen of Gebr. was published in the last days of May 2001 by Gyldendal. In Denmark the book is called: Brødre.
Brothers, the English translation Lance Salway made of Gebr., has been published on May 8th 2001 by new imprint CollinsFlamingo, which was launched on May 10th . Immediately it started to rain good reviews (the long list:

The press about Brothers. The Observer ranked Brothers as Book of The Week: "Clever, funny and moving" and "Sensitive and compelling". Books for Keeps ranked it with (top billing) five stars: "Consicious respect for the teenage reader's intellegence". And: "Brothers is certain to be categorized as a book about being gay and coming out, and it does indeed explore these matters with admirable power and insight... But Brothers is much more than a 'gay novel': it deals with illness, death, bereavement, with parent-child relationships, and with the mystery of brotherly love, in a way which enriches teenage literature. It deserves as warm a welcome here as it has gained in Holland and Germany."
For Scottish news paper The Herald Anne Johnstone wrote an article in which she confronted a fifteen year old boy who lost his brother a year ago with fragments from Brothers. Read the article:

The Herald.
Other quotes from the UK press: "Tender, sensitive and poignant. It's a very moving story. This is an amazingly insightful, differentiated, subtle and beautiful novel." "Brothers is a moving experience... It is certainly a page turner. I wanted to read further at every point... Emotionally charged and handled with immense sensitivity."
I've been told that the book also got a warm welcome in Australia and New Zealand.

UK ISBN 0007112319; Denmark ISBN 8702001411

My collection of poems and letters Zeer kleine liefde ("Very Little Love") has won the distinguished Nienke van Hichtumprijs 2001. This literary prize for youth literature is awarded once every two years by the Jan Campert Foundation, and it has been given to me in the Literary Museum in The Hague (Hfl 10.000,- or € 4.540).

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Book 2001

Klein groen koffertje (Little Green Suitcase), is a picture book I've made with Daan Remmerts de Vries. Earlier we made the picture book Mijn tuin, mijn tuin (My Garden, My Garden). Then I wrote the words to Daan's collages, now Daan made collages to my rhymes.
The story is about the inner urges of a tiny suitcase that simply feels the neeeed to travel...

Er was een klein groen koffertje dat bij de halte wachtte,
het wachtte bij de halte van de bus naar het station.
Het stond geduldig op de stoep en had maar één gedachte:
Ik wil zo graag op reis gaan naar een ver land in de zon.

Marieke Henselmans in de Volkskrant: "This is the kind of book that turns the parent in haste - Hurry up, I wanna watch the news! - into an exemplary reciter. Reads so well that you're feeling sorry when your children get too small for it... We're satisfied, the children are satisfied, and Annie (M. G. Schmidt, tvl) will, if she reads along from up above, be satisfied too."

Published by Leopold, Amsterdam, ISBN 9025830404

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Bi(bli)ography
(only short version available; a full bi(bli)ography available in Dutch:

Dutch please!)

Ted van Lieshout was born on December 21th of 1955 in Eindhoven and he lives in Amsterdam. He attended the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, where he studied illustration and graphic design. After his graduation in 1980, he worked for various publishers, designing book covers and making illustrations for newspapers and magazines. In 1982 he started illustrating for De blauw geruite kiel, a then famous literary magazine for children; he published his first poetry and stories in it two years later, and started writing for the Dutch version of the television programme Sesame Steet the very same year. Again two years later, in 1986, his first two books were published: the story Raafs Reizend Theater (Raven's Travelling Theatre) and the volume of children's poetry Van verdriet kun je grappige hoedjes vouwen (You Can Fold Sorrow into Funny Hats). The last won an incentive prize. Both books were followed by a rapid succession of prose and poetry for children, as well as plays for theatre and television.

In 1989 he was awarded the prestigious Charlotte Köhler Stipendium for best new writer for children and adolescents. More than twenty books followed, and more than ten prizes, among them the Premio Europeo Letteratura Giovanile Pier Paolo Vergerio of 1993 for Mijn botjes zijn bekleed met deftig vel (My Bones are Dressed in Classy Skin), the first Gouden Griffel (Golden Slate Pencil; best literary book for children and adolescents in the Netherlands) ever to have been awarded to a volume of poetry by a single poet (Begin een torentje van niks/Begin a Silly Little Tower), the German Youth Literature Prize (Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis 1999) and the Belgian Prix Farniente for the German and French version of Gebr., and the Zilveren Zoen (Silver Kiss) 1999 for his first essay about western art Stil leven (Still Life). In 2001 Zeer kleine liefde (Very Little Love) was awarded the two yearly Nienke van Hichtumprijs. Papieren Museum (Paper Museum) was nominated for the Belgium Golden Owl 2003.
His stories and poems are characterised by a melancholy humour, and dominated by the search for security and identity.

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Introduction literature for children and adolescents in The Netherlands and Flanders

Nederlands Literair Produktie- en Vertalingenfonds:

Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature

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Links

Various

The Foundation (NLPVF) in English about Gebr./Bruder/Brothers

Publishers

Collins Children's Books (Brothers)

Det Norske Samlaget

Van Goor