(Amid the lush abundance of Java's landscape, two boys spe...)
Amid the lush abundance of Java's landscape, two boys spend their days exploring the vast lakes and teeming forests. But as time passes the boys come to realize that their shared sense of adventure cannot bridge the gulf between their backgrounds, for one is the son of a Dutch plantation owner, and the other the son of a servant. Inevitably, as they grow up, they grow estranged and it is not until years later that they meet again. It will be an explosive and emblematic meeting that marks them even more deeply than their childhood friendship did.
(In this novel, set in the 15th century during the Hundred...)
In this novel, set in the 15th century during the Hundred Years War between France and England, Hella Haasse brilliantly captures all the drama of one of the great ages of history.
(Although he bears one of the most notorious names in all ...)
Although he bears one of the most notorious names in all of Italy, Giovanni Borgia doesn't know his parentage. Hella Haasse uses the Italian Wars as a backdrop for Giovanni's agonizing quest for his identity. Set against the backdrop of the Italian wars, this novel seeks to unravel the puzzle of Giovanni Borgia's true identity. Machiavelli, Vittoria Colonna, Michelangelo, the Borgias and the Medici are some of the characters who inhabit the secretive and dangerous world of sixteenth-century Rome.
(The Emperor Honorious cowers in the marsh-bound city of R...)
The Emperor Honorious cowers in the marsh-bound city of Ravenna, where he has moved the government. There is the Prefect Hadrian, a powerful official and fanatical Christian convert; Marcus Anicius, the pagan aristocrat who is clinging to a dyping past, and the Jew Eliezar ben Elijah, hemmed in by his own traditions and burdened by his dark vision of the future.
(Rudolf leaves his comfortable origins in Delft by ship fo...)
Rudolf leaves his comfortable origins in Delft by ship for Java to help run the family's estates there. He moves from plantation to plantation, attempting to understand the ways of the local peoples, their version of Islam and their relationship to their land.
(In this collection of stories, Haasse, one of Holland's m...)
In this collection of stories, Haasse, one of Holland's most popular contemporary writers, deals with themes of alienation and estrangement. Born in the Dutch East Indies, Haasse calls up the images, people, and memories of her childhood. These are the first English translations of Haasse's work.
Hella Haasse was a Dutch novelist noted for her innovative historical fiction. In the Netherlands she is particularly known for her novel Oeroeg while internationally the author is acclaimed for "Heren van de Thee", translated to "The Tea Lords".
Background
Hélène "Hella" Serafia Haasse was born on February 2, 1918, in Batavia, Indonesia (nowadays Jakarta, Indonesia). She was the daughter of Willem Hendrik Haasse, civil servant and author, and Katharina Diehm Winzenhöhler, a concert pianist.
Education
Hella spent her first twenty years in Indonesia and in the Netherlands and went to school in both places. After graduating from high school, she studied dramatic art, Dutch literature, and Scandinavian languages in the Netherlands. Hella also attended the University of Amsterdam.
In 1938, Haasse published her first poems in the Dutch magazine Werk. In 1948, she published her first novel, Oeroeg. In this novella, she explored race relations in the Dutch East Indies; she later returned to that setting in the novels Heren van de thee (1992; The Tea Lords) and Sleuteloog (2002; “Eye of the Key”). Her first historical novel, Het woud der verwachting (1949; In a Dark Wood Wandering), is about Charles d’Orléans, a French nobleman taken prisoner by the English in 1415.
Haasse revived the Marchioness of Merteuil (from Choderlos de Laclos’s novel Les Liaisons dangereuses) in Een gevaarlijke verhouding of Daal-en-Bergse brieven (1976; “A Dangerous Liaison, or Letters from Daal-en-Berg”). In novels about the Dutch aristocrat Charlotte-Sophie Bentinck, Onverenigbaarheid van karakter (1978; “Incompatibility of Character”) and De groten der aarde (1981; “Great Figures of History”), Haasse used a collage form, with authentic documents, to tell her story. Haasse also wrote the play Een draad in het donker (1963; “A Thread in the Dark”), based on the myth of Theseus and Ariadne, and autobiographical works, including Zelfportret als legkaart (1954; “Self-Portrait as Jigsaw Puzzle”). Het tuinhuis (“The Garden House”), a short-story collection, was published in 2006.
Haasse has also written autobiographical novels, and television scripts.
Hella was influenced by the poetry of Jan Jacob Slauerhof and Adriaan Roland Holst, who wrote lyrical works about the quest for meaning in life. This same quest would later turn out to be a major theme in Haasse’s work.
Membership
In 1987 Hella Haasse was given an honorary membership of the Belgian Royal Literary Academy (Belgische Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde (KANTL)) in Gent.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
“With contemporary Harry Mulisch she is probably the strongest candidate for a Nobel Prize in Literature the Netherlands has ever produced.”
Interests
Writers
Jan Jacob Slauerhof, Adriaan Roland Holst
Connections
In 1944, Hella married Jan van Lelyveld. They had three children.