Tonke Dragt

Biography

Antonia Johanna Willemina Dragt, better known as Tonke Dragt, was born in 1930 in Batavia on the Dutch East Indies (currently Jakarta in Indonesia). She spent the largest part of her youth there, including three years in a Japanese prisoner's camp during the Second World War between 1942 and 1945. She came to the Netherlands with her family after the war. She studied at the Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague and worked afterwards as a drawing teacher in secondary schools, living in The Hague.

Tonke Dragt first published stories in the magazine Kris Kras, and her first book appeared in 1961. She became one of the best known Dutch youth authors in 1962 with her second book, De brief voor de koning ("The Letter for the King"), which won the Gold Pen award (Gouden Griffel) for the best Dutch youth book of the year. She continued to produce at a high rhythm during the 1960s, but massively reduced the output of new work in the next decades, although collections of older short stories filled up many of the gaps.

Apart from writing and illustrating her own books, Tonke Dragt also made illustrations for some other books, including work by Paul Biegel, E. Nesbit, Rosemary Sutcliff, and the novel Elidor by Alan Garner.

The work of Tonke Dragt has been translated into many languages, including German, English, Afrikaans, Czech, Spanish, Danish and Indonesian.

Style and themes

Many of the books and stories by Tonke Dragt are situated in a fantasy or science fiction environment, although usually closely related to or intertwined with the real world. De brief voor de koning, Geheimen van het Wilde Woud, and a few short stories, are set in a fictional medieval world. Torenhoog en mijlenbreed, Ogen van tijgers, and related stories, are near-future science fiction stories, where the action happens on Venus and Earth. De Torens van Februari alternates between our world and a parallel world. De Zevensprong is most firmly set in a realistic setting.

Tonke Dragt uses elements of legends and fables, most clearly in Verhalen van de tweelingbroers. Her stories are mainly focused on one or a few male protagonists, often teenagers. They go on a personal quest, a search that may be externalized in an item like the letter in De brief voor de koning, but which results in a discovery of their own persona.

Success of The Letter for the King

The book The Letter for the King (Dutch: De brief voor de Koning) has sold over 1 million copies so far. The book has been translated many times, and reached its 22nd printing in Dutch in 2007.

In 2007, it premiered as a musical theater piece. This was the second theater production based on the works of Tonke Dragt, after an adaptation of De Zevensprong.

In 2015 a sequel, The Secrets of the Wild Wood, was translated into English.

The film based on the book, starring Derek de Lint was released in the summer of 2008.

Awards