HvS | "The Borrowed House" Now in Dutch at Urging of Ineke Kraijo

Dutch teen novelist Ineke
Kraijo liked The Borrowed
 House and urged it be
 translated into Dutch. It is
now, as Het Gestolen Huis.

Sorry for my excitement about the translation of a book by Hilda van Stockum (1908-2006) into Dutch. I just found out today that the Dutch publisher, Mozaiek, says one of its young-adult novelists, Ineke Kraijo, twice asked them to translate the book for a Dutch audience

The publisher quotes Hilda van Stockum, my mother, as saying:

Writing this true story was my way to forgive the Germans. Janna, a German girl, comes to live with her parents in occupied Amsterdam. When she arrives, she knows the Führer has the best for everyone, of course, but she slowly finds out unexpected things.

Three-quarters-Dutch (her mother was half-Irish, half-Dutch) van Stockum lost both her brothers – Willem and Jan – and many other relatives in World War II.

She was a highly esteemed international children's author. Her books have been translated into French, German, Portuguese, Hebrew, Danish and Japanese. The translation of The Borrowed House (The Stolen Home) by Mosaic (Mozaiek) now gives her book the place it deserves in the Netherlands (see May 11).

More information about the book can be found on the web shop "Bookshop Smit" in Gouda, the Netherlands.

The only other HvS book translated into Dutch was The Cottage at Bantry Bay, about the O'Sullivan family.

TRANSLATION: The Borrowed House Now in Dutch!

It was a great source of disappointment for my late mother, Hilda van Stockum (1908-2006), that during her lifetime none of her books was ever translated into her native Dutch language. She was born in Rotterdam and wrote five books* about Holland, although several publishers have over the years discussed with me the possibility of bying rights.

Hilda van Stockum's obituary in Het Parool described her as a famous writer and illustrator - famous everywhere in the world except her native country,  the Netherlands.

My mother always said that fame doesn't come until after one is dead. To which a granddaughter responded, trying to console her with the honors to come: "But Granny, you are almost dead."

The English Edition

Now the granddaughter's prediction about her prospects  is coming true. The first Dutch edition of a Hilda van Stockum came out last week. It was a translation of The Borrowed House. The Dutch name - the Dutch being less forgiving about the Nazi Occupation than an English-language publisher - is Het Gestolen Huis (The Stolen House).

*Her five books about Holland were A Day on Skates (her first, 1934; it was a Newbery Honor Roll book), Andries, Gerrit and the Organ, The Winged Watchman (1962) and The Borrowed House (her last full-length book, 1975).

Postscript