Simon Vestdijk

Simon Vestdijk was a Dutch novelist, poet, essayist, translator and music critic. Born in Harlingen in 1898, he died in Utrecht in 1971. He is regarded as one of the most important writers of the twentieth century in the Netherlands, and his work has been translated into several European languages. He matters as much for the sheer volume of what he wrote as for its range.

He studied medicine in Amsterdam and worked as a doctor for a few years, including a period on board a ship. From about 1932 he made his living from writing. His output as a novelist was enormous, and a remark is traditionally attributed to the poet Adriaan Roland Holst, to the effect that Vestdijk wrote faster than God could read. His essays on literature, religion, art and, above all, music were just as substantial.

His novels combine psychological insight with historical reconstruction. Anton Wachter, written between 1934 and 1960, is among his best-known psychological works, while The Fifth Seal, from 1937, is set in the past. He also wrote poetry and short stories. During the German occupation he was held hostage together with other Dutch intellectuals, mainly because they refused to join the Chamber of Culture. After the war he retired to Doorn, in the province of Utrecht. He suffered from severe depression from his youth and for much of his life, a condition that runs through his writing.

In 1950 he received the P.C. Hooft Award, the most prestigious literary prize in the Dutch language area, and for many years he was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Some of his novels were also adapted for cinema and television. His legacy lies in the breadth of his output and in his place in twentieth-century Dutch literature.