Author Country Netherlands Subject World War II | Original title Oorlogswinter Language English (translation) | |
Genre Historical fiction, juvenile fiction | ||
Winter in Wartime (Oorlogswinter, 1972) is a novel by the Dutch writer Jan Terlouw. The story is about a 16-year-old Dutch boy who lives through the last winter of World War II and is based on the author's recollections; Terlouw was 8 when the German army invaded the Netherlands.
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Reception
Winter in Wartime is one of the most popular Dutch books of the postwar period. It sold an estimated half a million copies, and library estimates indicate that more than a million children read the book. In 2014, Terlouw said he still receives mail, daily, about the book. His primary purpose, he said, was to make it clear to readers that they shouldn't think, after finishing the book, that the war had somehow been a glorious period; the second was to provide—in a moderate manner—a human face for the Germans, something he said had not yet been done by the early 1970s.
In 1973, the novel won the Gouden Griffel.
Adaptations
In 1975, a 13-episode Dutch television mini-series adaptation, Oorlogswinter, directed by Aart Staartjes, aired on the public television station Nederland 1 (now NPO 1). In 2008, an eponymous feature film adaptation of the book, directed by Martin Koolhoven, premiered in Amsterdam and the Netherlands. On October 1, 2011, Oorlogswinter, a Dutch musical based on the novel, and directed by Rogier van de Weerd, choreographed by Eefke Heit Brink, and scored by Klaas van Donkersgoed and Marieke van Diepen, premiered at the Zaantheater in Zaandam, North Holland.