Thursday, February 18, 2010

Anne Provoost

Anne Provoost was born in Belgium in 1964 and studied literature at the University of Leuven (Louvain). Her first novel, My Aunt is a Pilot Whale, she wrote while living in Minneapolis, USA. The book was published in Dutch in 1991 and translated into English three years later. My Aunt is a Pilot Whale was awarded with the Book Lion 1991 and the Interprovincial Prize, 1991, two main Belgian Awards. The novel was translated in German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Portuguese and Polish. Back in 1991, it was the first book on sexual child abuse for a young audience produced in the Low Countries.
Her second novel, Falling (1994), in which the pitfalls and allurements of extreme right-wing rhetoric are dealt with extensively, was published in Dutch in 1994. The book received five major awards in Belgium and the Netherlands. It was translated into English by John Nieuwenhuizen in 1997, and was made into an English spoken feature film that came out in the fall of 2001, starring Jill Clayburgh and Alice Krige (YouTube trailer). The book Falling has been translated in English, German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Polish and Slovenian, and was selected for the honor list of IBBY.
In the Shadow of the Ark ...several different covers!

1 comment:

Carrin Mahmood said...

A lovely evening was had by all! It was great guessing at what Ms. Provoost was thinking and then being able to surprise everyone with her actual comments. We thank her for the e-mail time she took.