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 ‘Eep!’ has become a theatre play in different  countries, and also a movie, that has been awarded in  Montreal, Milano, Vancouver, Copenhagen and Poland. Rights for other movies have been sold. In 2008 and  2009 Joke van Leeuwen was City Poet of Antwerp.  (www.stadsdichterjokevanleeuwen.be)

In 2010 she received the Golden Goose Feather for her  contribution to the Dutch literature. In 2012 Joke van Leeuwen wrote the special collection of poems for Poetry Day.

In 2012 her third novel appears: ‘Feest van het begin’  (Celebration of the beginning). 

In 2013 she received the Dutch Constantijn Huygens Award and the German James Kruess International Youth Literature Award.

Books have been translated into languages such as English, German, French, Spanish, Catalan, Italian,  Slovenian, Russian, Danish, Swedish, Japanese,  Hebrew, Georgian, Turkish, Papiamentu, Chinese, Korean.

Joke van Leeuwen

AUTEUR     ILLUSTRATOR     PERFORMER