Tonke Dragt

Tonke Dragt (1930–2024) was a Dutch author and illustrator of children’s and young adult books. She was born in Batavia, now Jakarta, Indonesia. During the Japanese occupation, while interned as a young girl, she began telling and writing stories and making her own books. After the Second World War, she studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and initially worked as an art and drawing teacher. Her first children’s book was published in 1961. She became best known for the novel »The Letter for the King« (»De brief voor de koning«, 1962), which received numerous awards and was translated into many languages. Her adventure and science-fiction novels earned her further prizes, including the Buxtehuder Bulle for »Turmhoch und meilenweit«.