Kamertjeszonde herman heijermans biography

​HEIJERMANS, HERMANN (1864–  ) , Dutch writer, of Jewish origin, was born on the 3rd of December 1864 at Rotterdam. In the Amsterdam Handelsblad he published a series of sketches of Jewish family life under the pseudonym of “Samuel Falkland,” which were collected in volume form. His novels and tales include Trinette (1892), Fles (1893), Kamertjeszonde (2 vols., 1896), Intérieurs (1897), Diamantstadt (2 vols., 1903). He created great interest by his play Op Hoop van Zegen (1900), represented at the Théâtre Antoine in Paris, and in English by the Stage Society as The Good Hope. His other plays are: Dora Kremer (1893), Ghetto (1898), Het zevende Gebot (1899), Het Pantser (1901), Ora et labora (1901), and numerous one-act pieces. A Case of Arson, an English version of the one-act play Brand in de Jonge Jan, was notable for the impersonation (1904 and 1905) by Henri de Vries of all the seven witnesses who appear as characters.

Dutch dramatist and author (1864–1924)

Herman Heijermans (3 December 1864 – 22 November 1924), was a Dutch playwright, novelist and sketch story writer, who is considered to be the greatest Dutch dramatist of the modern era. He is the most notable playwright from the Netherlands since Joost van den Vondel to have gained widespread recognition outside his own country.

Biography

Heijermans was born in Rotterdam, into a liberal Jewish family, the fifth of the 11 children of Herman and Matilda (Moses) Spiers. Painter Marie Heijermans was his sister.

Early career

During the winter of 1891-92 Heijermans wrote his first play, using the theme of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House and adding new characters and an authentic Dutch setting. Dora Kremer premiered on April 25, 1893, at the Groote Schouwburg in Rotterdam, and was met with general disapproval. Eager to avenge the humiliation, Heijermans plotted one of the most daring stratagems in modern Dutch literature. Determined to demonstrate that anyone but a Hollander would receive a warm welcome to the Dutch stage, he seized upon the Russian-sounding pseudonym 'Ivan Jelakowitch' and, keeping his own identity secret, announced his new one-act play Ahasverus, about a Jewish family caught in the violence of the pogroms of the 1880s. The play was a great success. In an article in De Telegraaf, Heijermans revealed his secret, quoting the reviews of Ahasverus along with the comments on Dora Kremer, much to the mortification of the critics. Soon after these events, Heijermans moved to Amsterdam.

Having won a triumphant victory with the name of Ivan Jelakowitch, Heijermans decided to adopt another pseudonym, 'Samuel Falkland Jr.', publishing a series of sketches of life in Amsterdam in De Telegraaf, and later in the Algemeen Handelsblad daily. These so-called 'Falklandjes' were later collected and published in book form, filling no less than eighteen vo

HEIJERMANS, HERMAN (1864–1924), Dutch playwright and novelist. Heijermans grew up in Rotterdam, the eldest son of a prominent journalist, and started writing after an unsuccessful time in the rag business. In 1893 he became a theater critic for the Amsterdam-based daily De Telegraaf, while exploring the latest fashions in naturalism and symbolism in his plays and stories. After his dramatic encounter with the woman who would become his first wife, he intensified this exploration. He established a periodical called De Jonge Gids (1897–1903), largely filled by himself under a dozen pseudonyms and in the most divergent styles, and turned the encounter with his wife into the novel Kamertjeszonde ("Little Room Sins," 1898). He also turned to socialism, to which he would remain loyal for the rest of his life.

Heijermans' early works show both his interest in social questions and his struggle with Jewish identity. His concern for the fate of Jewry first manifested itself in Ahasverus (1893), a play about a Russian pogrom. A Hebrew version of this drama, Ha-Noded ha-Niẓḥi, appeared in 1917. In two novels, Sabbath (1903) and Diamantstad ("Diamond City," 1904), and in the play Ghetto (1898), Heijermans denounced the backwardness of traditional Jewry in the Amsterdam ghetto. A more compassionate attitude is apparent in the serials he published in newspapers under the pseudonym Samuel Falkland between 1894 and 1915. These stories, more than 800, were collected in 18 volumes.

After 1900 Heijermans slowly moved away from Jewish subject matter and concentrated on writing drama. Op hoop van zegen ("The Good Hope," 1900) movingly described the miseries of Dutch fishermen. Schakels ("Links," 1903) offered an ironic portrayal of domestic strife. Other plays include Uitkomst ("Outlet," 1907), Eva Bonheur (1917), and the satirical De wijze kater ("The Wise Cat," 1918).

Heijermans became the most important Dutch dramatist of his time