About the Author

Annejet van der Zijl is one of the best-known and most widely read literary nonfiction writers in the Netherlands. She has written biographies of Dutch children’s author Annie M. G. Schmidt; Prince Bernhard, the husband of former Dutch queen Juliana; and Gerard Heineken, founder of the famous beer empire; as well as other works. Her nonfiction has been awarded the M. J. Brusse Prize for the best work of journalism and has been nominated for the Golden Owl and the AKO Literary Prize. An American Princess spent more than fifteen weeks at the top of the national bestseller list in the Netherlands and was short-listed for the Libris History Prize. In 2012, she was awarded the Golden Quill for her entire oeuvre.

Reviews

“Set against the tumultuous history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this biography is certainly entertaining, but it is also a fascinating story about a remarkable woman’s indomitable spirit and will to survive. A concise, thoughtful, and well-researched biography.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Readers will love this captivating true story of triumph, and the pursuit of the American Dream.” —SheReads

“What could I choose, but Diarmaid MacCulloch’s masterly Thomas Cromwell: A Life, published by Allen Lane? For those less Tudor, An American Princess by Annejet van der Zijl (AmazonCrossing, trans. Michele Hutchinson) is the story of Allene Tew, a small-town banker’s daughter five times wed, to gamblers, stockbrokers, finally royals. Light and gracefully written, it dances through a century of history, costing out the American dream like a feminine complement to the National Theatre’s absorbing Lehman Trilogy.” —Hilary Mantel, from the Guardian’s “Best Books of 2018”