Background

Arthur Japin was born on July 26, 1956 in Haarlem, Netherlands. He is the son of Bert Japin, a writer, and Annie Japin.

Education

Arthur Japin attended drama schools in London and Amsterdam. He also studied Dutch language and literature at the University of Amsterdam.

Career

Arthur Japin was an actor working in Rome when he first heard from a friend just returned from Ghana the true story that inspired Japin’s book, The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi. Japin spent ten years researching the story’s history in the Netherlands, Germany, Ghana, and Indonesia. He saw it as an opera, then a film, then a television mini-series, before it emerged in its final form - a novel, based on fact - that was first published in Holland. In 2007, an opera based on the novel premiered in Rotterdam.

Arthur’s second book, De droom van de leeuw, is a version of his relationship with the actress and novelist Rosita Steenbeek. His third novel, In Lucia's Eyes, was a historical novel, about Casanova's first lover, Lucia, who abandoned him in his youth, to resurface years later as a prostitute in an Amsterdam brothel. His 2006 Boekenweekgeschenk: De grote wereld is a novella about a pair of circus-performing dwarves caught in Nazi Germany, which had a record first printing of 813,000 copies.

Arthur also wrote the novel De overgave, to be translated as Someone Found. He has also published several volumes of stories. The first two, Magonische verhalen and De vierde wand, were gathered into the omnibus Alle verhalen.

Japin has also written several screenplays, radio plays, songs, and theater pieces.

Achievements

• Japin's work has been translated into more than 15 languages. His Magonische verhalen was made into the film. Arthur has won almost every prestigious prize in Dutch literature, including the Libris Prize for In Lucia's Eyes. His The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi became a bestseller and is considered a classic of modern Dutch literature.

Works

More photos

• book

  • In Lucia's Eyes

    (In Lucia’s Eyes is an elegant and moving story of love de...)

    2003
  • The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi 1997
  • Kolja 2017
  • Maar buiten is het feest 2012
  • Vaslav 2010
  • De grote wereld 2006
  • De droom van de leeuw 2002
  • De gevleugelde 2015

Views

Quotations: "That's the only thing that matters, honey, for someone to see more in you than you thought there was to see."

"One can only learn what one doesn’t know."

"My love was alive, not because I was loved, but because I myself loved!"

Connections

Japin lives with his partners - Lex Jansen, publicist, and Benjamin Moser, an American writer.

Father:

Bert Japin

Mother:

Annie Japin

Partner:

Lex Jansen

Partner:

Benjamin Moser

Benjamin Moser is known for his work involving Clarice Lispector and Susan Sontag.