Toon Streppel / Translator in Dutch

Comic books:

  1. The adventures of Jak and Bil in Gabon: The ivory secret
  2. The adventures of Jak and Bil in Scotland: The Loch Ness mystery
  3. The adventures of Jak and Bil in the Middle East: The H2O-tomobile enigma
  4. The adventures of Jak and Bil in the Netherlands: The plot of De Nachtegaal mill

I live both in The Hague and in a village in Luxembourg. It was through my work that I first landed up in Luxembourg, where I began a career spanning 36 years as an official in the European Parliament.To coin a phrase: “Language is really my thing” – in terms of my educational background (language studies and journalism), my work (10 years as a full-time translator and several decades in the information sphere) and my residential circumstances (in addition to living in the Netherlands and Luxembourg, I also spent a few years in Helsinki, Warsaw and Sofia).The author of the Jak & Bil books, Jacques Ortet, is my neighbour. He showed me his first draft of his very first book, which prompted me to think that it should be possible to publish a Dutch version. And that’s how it all came about.As a pensioner, I spend a lot of time on another art form, namely ex libris bookplates and other small-scale graphics, in my capacity as secretary of the association Exlibriswereld (www.exlibriswereld.nl) and editor-in-chief of its quarterly magazine “GrafiekWereld” (“Graphic World”).