For the first time in the history of the Hugo Awards, a Dutch writer has been nominated. This writer is Thomas Olde Heuvelt. The story that has been nominated, in the category “best novelette”, is “the boy who cast no shadow”. This story won the Paul Harland Award in 2010. This award is the most prestigious award in the Netherlands for SF, horror and fantasy. Recently Thomas won the Paul Harland Award 2012 with his new story “the fish in the bottle”.
As a writer Thomas is rather successful in the Netherlands. He cannot be classified as SF writer though, he mixes elements of several genres into a new, intoxicating cocktail. The result is most of the time a surreal story, with elements of SF, horror or fantasy in it. His fifth novel “HEX” will be released next week.
For the European community and the rest of the world there is good news. Now that Thomas has been nominated, he and his editor have plans to translate more books and stories into English. Keep your eyes open, because the stories of Thomas are unlike anything you have read before. They may not always be SF, but they are good, damn good.
Read more about Thomas on his English weblog: en.oldeheuvelt.com. Click on the cover image of the story there, and you can get a free download for your e-reader (mobi and epub).
If you are interested in English stories by writers originally writing in Dutch, you may find information about free stories here: www.adutchtreat.nl (updated on an irregular basis).
