About us

About De Correspondent

De Correspondent is one of the fastest-growing journalism platforms in the Netherlands. With over 65,000 members, we represent a new kind of journalism that doesn't follow media hype but produces in-depth stories that help our readers to better understand the world.

Our journalists, called 'correspondents', write about the themes that define our time: from climate change to the future of healthcare, and from migration to consumerism. Their goal is to provide the news with context.

De Correspondent is independent, privacy-friendly, and completely ad-free. You can find who currently writes for De Correspondent in our colophon (Dutch).

Origin and manifesto

De Correspondent launched on 30 September 2013 after a successful crowdfunding campaign, which saw more than 18,000 members join.

De Correspondent is based on ten key principles. These principles articulate what we stand for and strive for, in terms of our journalism and the way we view the world. You can find these principles in our manifesto. You can also find our manifesto in Dutch.

Books

In 2014, we published our first book: Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman. Ever since, we yearly release four to six books on the biggest themes of our time, which have been translated into more than one hundred languages.

Our books not only demonstrate what goes wrong in the world, but also try to show the way forward. In doing so, we actively pursue our ideals: to offer sustainable and accessible books on the most important topics of our time, and to provide our authors with the best possible conditions.

• Moral ambition by Rutger Bregman

  Every career spans around 2,000 workweeks. How you spend that time is one of the most important decisions of your life, yet many people are trapped in dull or even harmful jobs. Rutger Bregman advocates for moral ambition: prioritising impactful work over traditional measures of success. Bregman guides readers to join the pioneers dedicated to solving the world’s biggest problems.

  • Published in Dutch in March 2024, Moral Ambition spent weeks on top of the Dutch Bestseller list
  • The UK and Commonwealth translation rights (excluding Canada) have been sold to Bloomsbury. This translation is expected in the spring of 2025.
  • The Northern American rights have been sold to Little, Brown. This translation is also expected in the spring of 2025.
  • Translation rights have already been sold to more than 15 countries (you can find the complete list below).

• Humankind by Rutger Bregman

  Human beings, we're taught, are selfish by nature. But what if we were wrong? Rutger Bregman rewrites history - and sheds a new light on our future.

  • Humankind has been translated into 46 languages, sold over 1,5 million copies worldwide.
  • It was a New York Times Bestseller, Spiegel Bestseller, Sunday Times Bestseller and was one of the best selling Dutch books for three years.
  • One of the stories from the book, about the 'real Lord of the Flies', will be made into a movie by New Regency, the Hollywood studio behind 12 Years a Slave.
  • The documentary rights have been sold to the independent studio Media Res.

• The Number Bias by Sanne Blauw

  Whether it's election polls or the number of infections during an epidemic - numbers are everywhere and have a big influence on our lives. Sanne Blauw writes a history of the (sometimes deliberate) misuse of numbers.

  • The book has been translated into 14 languages and was called 'sharp and funny' in The Guardian.

• Second Thoughts by Lynn Berger

  What's it like to have a child when you already have one? And what does it mean to be second in a world that revolves around the first? An indispensable book for anyone who is having a second child, who is a second child or knows one.

  • It has been published in the United Kingdom and the United States, and an excerpt was published in TIME Magazine.

• How Are We Going To Explain This by Jelmer Mommers

  Climate change threatens everything we hold dear. But we are not as powerless as many think: we can turn the tide and write our own future.

  • Jelmer Mommers is known for his investigative journalism and worldwide scoop about the oil company Shell, which you can read in The Guardian.

• In Light-Years There's No Hurry by Marjolijn van Heemstra

  We often feel short of space: space in our calendars, in our heads, in our lives. But what if we look at existence from the greatest distance imaginable?

  • In Light-Years, according to novelist Jenny Offill, is a "lovely, lyrical book about the search for signs of life in these perilous times."

Our books not only demonstrate what goes wrong in the world, but also try to show the way forward. In doing so, we actively pursue our ideals: to offer sustainable and accessible books on the most important topics of our time, and to provide our authors with the best possible conditions.

The publishing team consists of Milou Klein Lankhorst (publisher and foreign rights agent), Andreas Jonkers (editor and PR), Channa van Dijk (translation rights, events, and finance), Anna de Roest (campaign manager), and Jessica Sies (publishing assistant).

Translation rights

Are you interested in publishing or translating one of our titles? Please get in touch with Milou Klein Lankhorst via milou@decorrespondent.nl.