Holland Park Press

By Pendle Harte on June 10th 2010

For one thing, the Holland Park Press isn’t in Holland Park. And nor is it really a press, not in the traditional sense. The Holland it refers to is the Netherlands one, not the west London park. And actually it’s an online publisher, with a sideline in real printed books. Still, the Holland Park Press is firmly based in W2, with its mission to bring Dutch literature
to the English-speaking world.

Behind this is Dutch emigrant Bernadette Jansen op de Haar. Despite a background in theoretical chemistry (which she calls “an instant conversation-stopper”), she 
has worked in publishing for several years and her vast experience in electronic publishing led to her reject the traditional book world when setting up on her own. “Bookshops are dwindling and e-editions are the future,” she says. “I don’t like the idea of books in warehouses. To me that’s not very efficient.” When her brother, Dutch writer Arnold Jansen op de Haar, was looking for a publisher and started sending her things to read, she decided to abandon her day job and publish him herself, in her forward-looking way. “These are really printed versions of e-books,” she says, showing off the family of paperbacks with their matching simple covers.

Her Holland Park Press does three things. Firstly it publishes a few forgotten Dutch classics in their original translations - “Dutch literature was very popular in England in the early 1900s,” Bernadette claims – including Frederick van Eeden’s Hedwig’s Journey in a revised version
of its 1902 English translation. Next, it publishes contemporary Dutch novels in both languages, and this is interesting because the translations are, unusually, approved by the authors – made possible by the fact that absolutely everyone in the Netherlands, literally, speaks flawless fluent English. Still, this is not a land known for its literature and most English speakers would be hard-pressed to name a single Dutch writer of any kind. “Dutch writers love to see their work translated,” says Bernadette. Well, of course they do. As well as reaching more readers, English has many more words than Dutch “so translating from Dutch to English is like a painter suddenly getting more colours to work with,” explains Bernadette. Clearly, the Netherlands’ painters have made more of a mark on the world than the country’s wordsmiths. The third job of the press is to publish people from all over the world who write in English, whom Bernadette encounters on the internet. “I use a lot of social networking sites,” she says. “In the old days, writers would have different publishers in different countries but
now there’s no need. Publishing seems very old-fashioned to me now.”

The Holland Park Press’s next new Dutch novel, due in autumn, will be partly set in Holland Park. This is a local venture with a global presence. l

hollandparkpress.co.uk

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