Maaike van Eijk. Born and raised in The Hague. Certified fitness instructor. Started her career at a translation agency which she eventually took over. Sold it right before the economic crisis. Ended up in an open-plan office before coming to her senses. Quit her job at once and founded Sobriquet. Lifts heavy things for fun.

Remy van der Meer. Studied industrial design once but didn’t like stuff. Then decided he wanted to become a jazz guitarist but was rejected from the conservatory. Refused to grow up and studied philosophy and logic. Wrote a very long thesis on three lines by Wittgenstein. Came out unscathed. Or so he thinks.

Lisanne Onderwater. Moved from Lisse to London for the film academy, from London to Amsterdam for love and from there to Arnhem to study Creative Writing at ArtEZ. Tried her hand at the novel but ended up renovating her house. Still craftier with words than with hammers and saws. Is happy to be back in the Bulb Region.

Sophie Redfern. Boris Becker winning Wimbledon started the ball rolling: her interest in tennis and language learning. A bachelor’s degree in German with Dutch followed. After graduation, this Cheshire Cat left the green hills of north-west England behind, only to reappear in Bavaria. A jack-of-all-trades who finally mastered translation at Leiden University and has since joined Team Sobriquet.

Thom van der Wal. Descended on us from our Royal City. Did lots of things at school except pay attention. Started to study philosophy in frustration and then fell upon writing. Feels nothing for existentialism. Has since scrubbed up reasonably well. Now punches keys for a living. Sporadically inspired. Occasionally lyrical.

Relentless when it comes to quality. Just like us. Colin, Kelly, Paula, Maud, Liz, Lionel, Aude, Emeline, Pascale, Sabine, Bettina, Sybille, Marleen, Steffie, Filippo, Marit, Lucia, Esther, Betânia and Jolanta make up the illustrious group of translators, editors and copywriters we work with. Thanks to these polyglot wizards, we can tell a tale in any language.

T. rex Trix. Happily six feet under for 66 million years. Then discovered, packed in crates and shipped to Leiden. Never asked for that. Now the star attraction at Naturalis. Photographed by us because we have a wooden dinosaur as a mascot. But you guessed it: we never asked Trix.

Visit Trix in Naturalis