The Dream Merchant (Works in Translation)

Winner of the Netherlands' most prestigious children's book award, this epic adventure quest draws readers deep into a collective dream world — and sweeps them along on a riveting journey through a reimagined past.

"They're going to send you on a sales trip and it'll be the death of you — I know what's going on at Gippart. You're their guinea pig."

Josh Cope is a bit of a dreamer . . . who sometimes steals things. Otherwise, he's just your average boy. So why is an international corporation calling him in the middle of the night, insisting that he come and work for them? Why would they be so convinced that Josh is the key to conquering their new market — the past? Drawn into this astonishing, whirlwind adventure, Josh soon finds himself in the middle of a nightmare, caught in a place between dreams and reality. For Josh and his friends to find their way back, they must follow a trail that takes them right into the very heart of the human imagination — and to the furthest ends of time itself.

ISABEL HOVING was born in Amsterdam. She began her career as a secondary-school teacher, during which time she became very active in the Dutch women's movement. She eventually gave up her job to study literary theory full-time and spent some months in Senegal, West Africa, for a research project — an experience that gave her a completely different perspective on the world and that she describes as a turning point in her life. Now a lecturer at Leiden University, Isabel Hoving lives with her partner and son in Amsterdam.


HESTER VELMANS has translated a number of novels from Dutch into English, including THE LILY THEATER by Lulu Wand and Renate Dorrestein's A HEART OF STONE, which won the Vondel Prize for Dutch Translation. In addition, she has contributed to her parents' wartime memoirs - EDITH'S STORY by Edith Velmans and LONG WAY BACK TO THE RIVER KWAI by Loet Velmans — and has written a children's novel, ISABEL OF THE WHALES.