Jacoba van Velde

Jacoba van Velde was a Dutch writer, translator, and dramaturge. Her first novel, De grote zaal, appeared in the literary journal Querido in 1953 and was translated into thirteen languages within ten years. During her life around 75,000 copies of De grote zaal were sold. In 2010, the book was chosen for the Nederland Leest campaign and copies were given away for free to members of all the public libraries in The Netherlands.