Carl Friedman is a Dutch author, journalist, and poet. In all of Friedman’s works, World War II is a central theme.
Background
Carl Friedman was born on April 29, 1952, in Eindhoven, Noord-Brabant, the Netherlands. She grew up in Eindhoven and in the Belgian city of Antwerp, to which her Jewish family moved to when she was a young girl. Her father, Jochel, was born in 1911 and trained to be a doctor. He appears to have spent time in a concentration camp and after the war worked for the Philips Company in Eindhoven. In addition to Carl, he and his wife had two sons, both older than her.
Education
After school, Carl Friedman trained as a translator.
Career
Carl Friedman made her debut in 1991 with the widely acclaimed novel Tralievader. Of that translations have since appeared in German (Vater, eine Erzählung, 1993), English (Nightfather, 1994), Italian (Come siamo fortunati, 1997), French (Mon père couleur de nuit, 2001) and Spanish (Al otro lado de la alambrada, 2001). The book was also filmed by Danniel Danniel, the film was broadcast on NPS television in 1997.
The novel Two suitcases was published in 1993. Again translations followed, in German (Zwei Koffer, 1996), English (The shovel and the loom, 1996), French (Une histoire perdue, 2003) and Russian (Dva tsjemodana vospominani, 2004) and a film adaptation, this time by Jeroen Krabbé under the title Left Luggage (1998).
Friedman's third book, The Gray Lover, was published in 1996. This collection consists of three long stories and was nominated by the Council for Culture for the European Literature Prize 1997 (Aristeion Prize) and in 1998 for the Prix des Ambassadeurs, a prize set by 25 in Foreign ambassadors working in the Netherlands. A German translation was published in 1997 (Der graue Liebhaber), an English one in 1998 (The Gray Lover) and an Italian one in 2001 (L'amante biglio).
She wrote columns in Trouw and Vrij Nederland. In November 2001 a bundle of these columns appeared under the title Dostoevsky's umbrella. In the fall of 2004, the second collection of her best columns appeared: Who has the most Jews.
Views
Friedman's work is part of a growing body of literature written by the sons and daughters of Holocaust survivors. While some second-generation writers, such as Art Spiegelman and Helen Epstein, chronicle their parents' experiences in nonfiction works, Friedman confronts the Holocaust in novel form. Her novels share many of the same themes of other second-generation fiction: the relationship between parent and child, the emotions of the second generation, the impossibility of fully comprehending the horror of the Holocaust. What distinguishes Friedman's novels from other second-generation literature is their form and the distinctiveness of their voice. Focusing on the children of survivors, Friedman's novels ask what it means to live after the destruction in a world that has largely moved on. There may be no question more important for the reader to face.
Connections
After a brief and unhappy marriage, Friedman moved to Amsterdam with her son Aron, who was born in 1979.