Willem Frederik Hermans
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The Dutch writer Willem Frederik Hermans (September 1, 1921–April 27, 1995) is considered one of the three most important authors in the Netherlands in the postwar period, along with Harry Mulisch and Gerard Reve.
His oeuvre includes novels, short stories, essays, and philosophical and scientific works.
His style is existentialist and generally quite bleak, and his writing style is quite unique in its short and pointed sentences, especially in Dutch. There is no doubt that he was influenced by World War II and the German occupation of the Netherlands between 1940 and 1945, and his longer novels (De tranen der acacia's and De donkere kamer van Damokles) are set during the war. Even his more upbeat writings (Onder professoren and Au pair) can have a strange, existentialist twist to them.
In 1958 W.F. Hermans was appointed as a lecturer in physical geography at the Groningen University. In 1973 he resigned and settled as a full time writer in Paris. In Onder professoren (1975) he described the university life in Groningen in a bitter and malign way.
Bibliography (selection)
- Moedwil en misverstand (short stories, 1948)
- De tranen der acacia's (novel, 1949)
- Ik heb altijd gelijk (novel, 1951)
- Paranoia (short stories, 1953)
- Description et genèse des dépôts meubles de surface et du relief de l'Oesling (dissertation, 1955)
- De God Denkbaar Denkbaar De God (novel, 1956)
- Drie melodrama's (novel/short stories, 1957)
- Een landingspoging op Newfoundland (short stories, 1957)
- De donkere kamer van Damokles (novel, 1958)
- Nooit meer slapen (novel, 1966)
- Een wonderkind of een total loss (verhalen, 1967)
- Herinneringen van een engelbewaarder (novel, 1971)
- Het evangelie van O. Dapper Dapper (novel, 1973)
- Onder professoren (novel, 1975)
- Filip's sonatine (short story, 1980)
- Uit talloos veel miljoenen (novel, 1981)
- Geijerstein's dynamiek (short story, 1982)
- De zegelring (short story, 1984)
- Een heilige van de horlogerie (novel, 1987)
- Au pair (novel, 1989)
- De laatste roker (short stories, 1991)
- In de mist van het schimmenrijk (short story, 1993; boekenweekgeschenk (Dutch Book Week Gift), later published as Madelon in de mist van het schimmenrijk)
- Ruisend gruis (novel, published after his death in 1995)
External link
- WF Hermans (http://www.wfhermans.net/) (in Dutch)de:Willem Frederik Hermans