JOKE VAN LEEUWEN Joke van Leeuwen (pronounce Yow (as in blow) keh (as in writer) van (a as in large) Lay- wun) was born in The Hague in 1952 and moved to Amsterdam at the age of two. She grew up in an environment that stimulated creativity. In 1966 the family moved to Belgium where the author studied history at the University of Brussels and Graphic Arts at the Royal Academy in Antwerp and the Sint Lukas Institute in Brussels. In 1978 she won the Delft student cabaret festival. She developed her idiosyncratic talents in many ways, as a novelist, poet, children's book author, illustrator, performer. She has been translated into many languages and received numerous prizes in different countries for all these genres, including ‘Gouden Griffel’ and ‘Gouden Penseel’ ( annual prizes for author and illustrator of best children's book), ‘Woutertje Pieterse Prijs’ ( critics prize; twice), ‘C. Buddingh' Prijs’ ( for new Dutch poetry), ‘Gouden Uil’ and ‘Jonge Gouden Uil’ ( Flemish literary prizes), ‘Theo Thijssen Prijs’ (Dutch state prize for an oeuvre), ‘Deutscher Jugendbuch Preis’. One of her poems has been awarded as one of the three best poems of 2001. She is nominated for the ‘H.C. Andersen Prize’ and the ‘Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award’. She received the ‘Gouden Ganzenveer’ for her contribution to Dutch Literature. The English translation of the story of Bobble was amongst the best children's books in the English language of the year. In 2002 she published a novel ‘Vrije Vormen’ (Free Forms) about perfectionism and decadence, artists
and refugees, that has been called extremely surprising and wonderful by newspapers. In 2003 appeared the children’s book ‘Kweenie’ (Dunno), a mixture of pictural texts, Photoshop surprises and hand made illustrations. Critics wrote: ‘…so ingenious that this can only be Joke van Leeuwen’. Her book ‘Iep!’ has become a theatre play in The Netherlands and Georgia. The movie ‘Iep!’ is selected for the Berlin Film Festival 2010. Translations appeared in many languages such as French, German, Danish, Georgian, Catalan, Slovenian, Japanese, Swedish, Hebrew, Turkish, Russian, English and others. Editor in Holland: Querido, Singel 262, 1016 AC Amsterdam. Some of the titles in other languages:
-Viegelchen will vliegen (Hanser Verlag)
-Deesje macht das schon (Beltz&Gelberg)
-Ma non è un angelo (Salani)
-Desi (Berghs)
-El increíble viaje de Desi (SM)
-The Story of Bobble who wanted to be rich (Turton&Chambers)
-Tchiptchip (Ecole des loisirs)
-På ubestemt tid (Modtryk)
-Deesje (Fukuinkan Shoten, Japan)
-Weissnich, (Gerstenberg, D)-Eep! (Gecko, English) In 2008/2009 Joke van Leeuwen was city poet of Antwerp (www.stadsdichterjokevanleeuwen.be)http://www.stadsdichterjokevanleeuwen.beshapeimage_7_link_0
Joke van Leeuwen AUTEUR ILLUSTRATOR PERFORMER