Martsje de Jong (1975) was born and raised on a farm in Penjum. She studied Dutch Agriculture, but couldn’t find work in her chosen field. She learned how to read and write in Frisian in primary school, but she doesn’t often publish self-written work. What she does do, is translations. She made her debut with a translation of The BFG in 2016, which was included in the IBBY honours list of 2018. Since then, she has translated a bunch of books for children and adults.
Martsje also works as a storyteller, such as part of the Völuspá project by author Willem Schoorstra. Since 2019, she publishes poetry. Her poetry debut was on the website of RIXT with her poem ‘Yn ‘e tún fan Jan Ritskses’ (‘In the garden of Jan Ritskes).