Born in Zwijndrecht, Holland in 1942, Pleuke Boyce (neé van Dam) married a Canadian in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1961 and came to Toronto for one year, where she worked at a children's library. Moving to Antwerp, Belgium, she became a translator and an instructor of Dutch at the Berlitz School of Languages while writing for two Flemish newspapers. She lived in Zeeland, Holland for six years prior to moving to Errington on Vancouver Island in 1974. "When we arrived here, the place was full of American draft dodgers, interesting people from all over the world, who'd decided to become farmers. Unfortunately most of them have left over the years and gone back to the city." An author in both English and Dutch, Boyce received the 1990 Columbia University Translation Prize for her rendition of But This Land Has No End by Holland's Gerrit Achterberg. Her stories have appeared in Buffaloberries and Saskatoons, an anthology from Netherlandic Press, which also printed her collection of poems and stories, Dutch Medley (Windsor: Netherlandic Press, 1986), illustrated by Colleen M. Graham.

[BCBW 2003] "Translation" "Poetry"