World Editions brings Boekenweek back to the US, Canada, and the UK for the Second Year

Please note this page is being continually updated
We are excited to announce the second annual International Boekenweek celebration!

In the Netherlands, Boekenweek (Book Week) is an annual celebration of literature, happening every Spring since 1935. Events are held across the country during Boekenweek, and include book signings, readings, and panel discussions. Every year, a well-known Dutch author is asked to write a novella specifically for Boekenweek, which is given out for free in bookstores to each customer who purchases a book. These novellas then act as tickets for a free train ride anywhere in the country. In 2016, World Editions author Esther Gerritsen (Roxy, Craving) wrote the Boekenweek gift of which 600,000 copies were handed out.

Last year, we ran our first, very successful Boekenweek campaign complete with Blog Tour and three Flemish authors touring across the US.

This year, the 85th Annual Boekenweek will take place from March 7th to March 15th. This year's theme is REBELS & DISSENTERS, and our very own Esther Gerritsen's Roxy (forthcoming in the US) has been highlighted by the festival for its titular character's particular ties to that theme.

In the US and Canada, along with our counterpart in the UK and other independent presses here in the US, World Editions will be celebrating the work some of the most important contemporary and classic writers from the Netherlands recently released or forthcoming in English translation. Wat leuk!

Where Writers Are Treated Like Movie Stars

Read this feature on Boekenweek in Lithub, written by one of our own Dutch to English translators, Michele Hutchison (Craving, Roxy, Slaves to Fortune).

Photo: Boekenbal, 1948

Enter our Goodreads giveaway! 

For the entire month of March, enter our Goodreads giveaway for a chance to win one of five very early galleys of Summer Brother, translated from the Dutch by David Doherty. Forthcoming in February 2021.
Thirteen-year-old Brian lives in a trailer on a forgotten patch of land with his divorced and uncaring father. His older brother Lucien, physically and mentally disabled, has been institutionalized for years. While Lucien’s home is undergoing renovations, he is sent to live with his father and younger brother for the summer. Their detached father leaves Brian to care for Lucien’s special needs. But how do you look after someone when you don’t know what they need? How do you make the right choices when you still have so much to discover? Summer Brother is an honest, tender account of brotherly love, which will resonate with readers of Rain Man

Participating Bookstores

From March 7 through March 15, visit your local bookstore and pick up a World Editions title or two. With your purchase, get a free #Boekenweek2020 tote bag or World Editions title. It's our version of the Boekenweekgeschenk, from us to you. Promotions vary by store.

Bookshop West Portal, San Francisco
Star Line Books, Chattanooga
Malaprop's Bookstore, Asheville 

Staff picks from Queen Anne Book Co

Craving by Esther Gerritsen

Translated by Michele Hutchison
"Adorable story! When passing on a major street in Amsterdam, Elizabeth tells her daughter that she has cancer. Coco, in an insecure relationship, feels the need to move back in with her mother. Well described characters include the ex-husband/father and stepmother. Poignant, but often funny. Really enjoyable to read."


Ventoux by Bert Wagendorp

Translated by Paul Vincent
"Great story about old and renewed friendships, and observations about life and growing up. Cycling is a central theme, including two climbs up Mont Ventoux, famous from the Tour de France, in their youth and later as they get together again. A feel-good, pleasant summer read."


INTERNATIONAL BLOG TOUR

Saturday, March 7

Roxy and The Darkness That Divides Us

with Katherine Krige
#Boekenweek2020 #Boekenweek #DutchLit

Two Blankets, Three Sheets

with TripFiction
#Boekenweek2020 #Boekenweek #DutchLit

Sunday, March 8

The Dutch Maiden and Mr. Miller

with Meredith Smith
#Boekenweek2020 #Boekenweek #DutchLit

The Blessed Rita

with David's Book Blog
#Boekenweek2020 #Boekenweek #DutchLit

Monday, March 9

Ventoux

with Lizzy Siddall
#Boekenweek2020 #Boekenweek #DutchLit

Tuesday, March 10

Two Blankets, Three Sheets

with Autumn Curry
#Boekenweek2020 #Boekenweek #DutchLit

The Blessed Rita

with Linda's Book Blog
#Boekenweek2020 #Boekenweek #DutchLit 

Wednesday, March 11

Two Blankets, Three Sheets

with David's Book Blog
#Boekenweek2020 #Boekenweek #DutchLit 

Thursday, March 12

The Blessed Rita

with Lizzy Siddall
#Boekenweek2020 #Boekenweek #DutchLit 

Friday, March 13

Ventoux

with TripFiction
#Boekenweek2020 #Boekenweek #DutchLit 

Saturday, March 14

The Darkness That Divides Us

with Robyn Roste
#Boekenweek2020 #Boekenweek #DutchLit

Two Blankets, Three Sheets

with Lizzy Siddall
#Boekenweek2020 #Boekenweek #DutchLit 

Sunday, March 15

The Darkness That Divides Us

with Marilyn Panton
#Boekenweek2020 #Boekenweek #DutchLit  

The Discomfort of Evening

with Winston's Dad
#Boekenweek2020 #Boekenweek #DutchLit  

Participating Publishers

Check out these titles translated from the Dutch published by our friends at DoppelHouse, Deep Vellum, Other Press, New Vessel, Archipelago Books, Faber and Faber, and Scribe UK

Malva

by Hagar Peeters
Translated by Vivien D. Glass
DoppelHouse Press
9780999754429

Malva, a precocious eight-year-old ghost, is running amok in the afterlife with a cadre of other lost children. She searches for her father, the famous poet Pablo Neruda, and wants him to know the details of her small, but not insignificant life. 

La Superba

by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer
Translated by Michele Hutchison
Deep Vellum Press
9781941920220

An absolute joy to read, La Superba, winner of the most prestigious Dutch literary prize, is a Rabelaisian, stylistic tour-de-force about a writer who becomes trapped in his walk on the wild side in mysterious and exotic Genoa, centering on the stories of migration and immigration, legal and illegal, telling the story of modern Europe.

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Sleepless Night

by Margriet de Moor
Translated by David Doherty
New Vessel Press
9781939931696

A woman gets up in the middle of a wintry night and starts baking a Bundt cake while her lover sleeps upstairs. When it’s time for her to take the cake out of the oven, we have read a tale of romance and death.

An Untouched House

by Willem Frederik Hermans
Translated by David Colmer
Archipelago Books
9781939810069

A mesmerizing, dark meditation on the legacy of war. An interloper and opportunist makes a grand house his own in the chaos of a war-torn countryside, only to find himself involved with occupying forces and enraged locals.

Even Now

by Hugo Claus
Translated by David Colmer
Archipelago Books
9781935744887

Hugo Claus’s poems are remarkable for their dexterity, intensity of feeling, and acute intelligence. Perhaps Belgium’s leading figure of postwar Dutch literature, Claus has long been associated with the avant-garde: these poems challenge conventional bourgeois mores, religious bigotry, and authoritarianism with visceral passion.

Wonder

by Hugo Claus
Translated by Michael Henry Heim
Archipelago Books
9780980033014

While exposing the remains of Flemish fascism twenty years after the War, Wonder tracks one man’s descent into madness. Victor, a bewildered teacher, pursues a mysterious woman to a castle in a remote village. There he finds himself trapped among a handful of desperate individuals still living out their collaboration with the Nazis.

The Discomfort of Evening

by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld
Translated by Michele Hutchison
Faber and Faber
9780571349364

Ten-year-old Jas has a unique way of experiencing her universe: the feeling of udder ointment on her skin as protection against harsh winters; the texture of green warts, like capers, on migrating toads; the sound of 'blush words' that aren't in the Bible. But when a tragic accident ruptures the family, her curiosity warps into a vortex of increasingly disturbing fantasies - unlocking a darkness that threatens to derail them all.

A bestselling sensation in the Netherlands, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld's radical debut novel is studded with images of wild, violent beauty: a world of language unlike any other.

The Consequences

by Niña Weijers
Translated by Hester Velmans
DoppelHouse Press
9780997818437

Meet Minnie Panis, a young and talented conceptual artist navigating love affairs, her unexpected success in the art world, and her relationship with an emotionally distant mother.

The Republic

by Joost de Vries
Translated by Jane Hedley-Prole
Other Press
9781590518533

A gripping academic novel about deception and self-deception, ambition, the love of history as entertainment, and the hunt for the perfect enemy.


I Wish

by Ingrid Godon and Toon Tellegen
Translated by David Colmer
Archipelago Books
9781939810328

Bestelling Dutch children’s author Toon Tellegen matches 33 imaginative prose-poems prompted by the statement “I wish” with luminous, old-fashioned portraits by Ingrid Godon in this beautiful, unique volume perfect for thoughtful young readers.

Eline Vere

by Louis Couperus
Translated by Ina Rilke
Archipelago Books
9780981955742

Eline Vere is a young heiress: dreamy, impulsive, and subject to bleak moods. Though beloved among her large coterie of friends and relations, there are whispers that she is an eccentric: she has been known to wander alone in the park as well indulge in long, lazy philosophical conversations with her vagabond cousin. When she accepts the marriage proposal of a family friend, she is thrust into a life that looks beyond the confines of The Hague, and her overpowering, ever-fluctuating desires grow increasingly blurred and desperate.

The Twin

by Gerbrand Bakker
Translated by David Colmer
Archipelago Books
9780980033021

When his twin brother is killed in a car accident, Helmer is obliged to give up university to take over his brother’s role on the small family farm, resigning himself to spending the rest of his days "with his head under a cow." Ostensibly a novel about the countryside, The Twin ultimately poses difficult questions about solitude and the possibility of taking life into one’s own hands. It chronicles a way of life that has resisted modernity, a world culturally apart yet laden with familiar longing.

The Blessed Rita

by Tommy Wieringa 
Translated by Sam Garrett
Scribe UK
9781911344902

What is the purpose of a man? Living in a disused farmhouse with his elderly father, Paul Krüzen is not sure he knows anymore. The mill his grandfather toiled in is closed, the glory of the Great Wars is long past, and it has been many years since his mother escaped in the arms of a Russian pilot, never once looking back. What do they have to look forward to now?

Saint Rita, the patron saint of lost causes, watches over Paul and his best friend Horseradish Hedwig, two misfits at odds with the modern world, while Paul takes comfort in his own Blessed Rita, a prostitute from Quezon. But even she cannot protect them from the tragedy that is about to unfold.

In this darkly funny novel about life on the margins of society, Dutch sensation Tommy Wieringa asks what happens to those left behind.

Check out all of our Dutch and Flemish titles!

For US Readers

For UK Readers

This page is maintained by Sabrina Greene, World Editions. Please send questions, suggestions, and corrections to s.greene@worldeditions.org