Willem Brakman was a Dutch writer. He penned over thirty novels and novellas, as well as several collections of short stories.
Background
Ethnicity:
Willem's parents were both from Zeeland, making him partially Zeeuw.
Willem Brakman was born on June 13, 1922, in South Holland, Netherlands. He is the son of Hendrik Brakman and Maria Leuntje de Broekert.
Education
Willem's primary school was the Duindorp-The Hague. He described his primary school time as a period in which he was seriously tested by teachers and classmates.
Career
Brakman is considered to be of the best writers of the 20th century. During his life, he worked as a record producer and editor of CD Review. time he Among his novels are Debielen en Demonen, Zes subtiele verbalen, and De jojo van de lezer. His 1998 novel Ante Diluvium showcases Brakman’s use of a complex narrative technique, with a deliberately vague sense of time. The story is further complicated by the fact that the narrator is writing a book titled Winnetou Is Dead, and in this book, the events parallel those in Brakman’s Ante Diluvium. The main story of the book involves a group of boys who plot violent acts against adults and each other. The narrator, known as Old Shatterhand, proposes that they murder another boy, Maarten Olie, who wants to join the club. Throughout the rest of the book, more violent and mysterious acts occur, some in flashbacks, some in present time. According to Ari Staal in World Literature Today, “Brakman provides us with vignettes which suggest that evil is an ever-present threat, although some of his youths are clearly more malevolent than others.”
Also dealing with violence, De Vadermoorders “is anything but run-of-the-mill, easy-to-follow crime fiction,” according to Henri Kops in World Literature Today. Kops noted that the novel is occasionally self-indulgent, but praised Brakman’s sophistication and large vocabulary. In the 2000 novel De Koning is Dood, the author creates a dreamscape wherein, according to World Literature Today contributor Stephan Atzert, the complex plot “poses difficulties for uninitiated readers” while providing a new challenge to the “Brakmanianen” that constitute the novelist’s core readership in his native Netherlands. Atzert added that, in a discussion with Brakman, “he stated that the mental effort required of unraveling something is of fundamental importance in life. Solutions will stop the mind front exerting itself in its attempt to grasp that which is outside its reach.”
Describing Brakman’s fiction, Martinus Arnoud Bakker noted in a review for World Literature Today that his novels “can be seen as a highly successful exploitation of linguistic means heretofore left unexplored". When Brakman made his debut in 1961, he found himself in the commendable company of fellow experimentalists such as Gerrit Krol and Cees Nooteboom, whose works we also initially deemed rather inaccessible but which, as is generally the case with precious objects, increase in value and relative appreciation as time goes by.”
William served as a military doctor in Amersfoort and in Ede during 1952-1953.
Views
Quotations:
"For me, childhood was a country of origin that I have never been able or willing to overcome. I always think about it, have always been there and have never left it in truth. I can still see my feet stepping out of the water from the beach lake on the clean day itself, feeling my forehead full of morning sun and the salt dripping out of sight. The cities of today are strange to me and full of dabbles, the air is homely, the sounds annoying, and it will always remain that way."