Trivia

Vestdijk struggled with severe depressions from his youth, and until the end of his life.

Some of his novels appeared as films in the cinema, or were broadcast on television.

From 1932, he lived from literature and he became one of the most important 20th-century writers in the Netherlands.

Vestdijk was a Dutch writer.

He also wrote much poetry and short stories and his work has been translated into several European languages.

He was nominated for the Nobel prize in literature fifteen times.

After the war, he retired to Doorn (Utrecht province).

His prolificness as a novelist was legendary (poet Adriaan Roland Holst saying of him that "he writes quicker than God can read"), but he was at least as important as an essayist on e.g., literature, religion, art, and music in particular.

During the German occupation, he and other Dutch intellectuals were held hostage for some time, partly because they did not want to join the Chamber of Culture.

Born in the small Frisian town of Harlingen, Vestdijk studied medicine in Amsterdam, but turned to literature after a few years as a doctor, including some time on board a ship.