The Miracle Storyteller
Publisher: Luitingh-Sijthoff
On the travels of Marco Polo
Tripple winner of the Golden Slate Pencil, the Silver Slate Pencil and the Thea Beckman Award 2025
Nominated for the Boon Literature Award, De Kleine Cervantes and the Reader’s Jury 2026
Winner of the Silver Paintbrush Award 2025
Nominated for the IBBY Biennal of Illustrations in Bratislava
25.000 copies sold in the Netherlands
Both author and illustrator have done thorough research for this book
Genoa, 1298. Topina, a cleaner in prison, has never left her hometown. Prisoner Marco Polo, on the contrary, has travelled all over the world. People come to prison every day to hear his wonderful stories. But Marco has had enough of telling the same story over and over, so Topina secretly arranges for a fellow prisoner to write all the stories down.
Marco Polo’s stories contain endless plains, mountains touching the sky and seas of pearls. But also fabulous animals, opulent palaces and the unpredictable prince Kubilai Chan. As Topina breathlessly listens to the stories, she learns about the grandeur of the world and doubts her own small existence for the first time.
Praise:
‘In this cleverly constructed frame narrative, Dijkstra blends fact and fiction in such a way that the reader is inevitably drawn into the story.’ — Jury of the Silver Slate Pencil Award
‘The illustrations are so atmospheric that you can almost smell the scenes.’ — Jury of the Silver Paintbrush Award
Rights sold to Kastaniotis (Greece, via Livia Stoia)
