We just got the news that Cees Nooteboom, the Dutch novelist, poet and travel writer, has died aged 92. His publisher, De Bezige Bij, said he passed away peacefully on his beloved island of Menorca, in a statement issued on behalf of his wife, photographer Simone Sassen.
Born in The Hague in 1933, Nooteboom debuted in 1955 with Philip and the Others, inspired by hitchhiking journeys across Scandinavia and the Mediterranean. The novel won the Anne Frank Prize and became a modern Dutch classic. He achieved his international breakthrough with the 1980 novel Rituals, later adapted into a film and translated into English, cementing his reputation abroad.
Nooteboom's work often found even greater acclaim in countries such as Germany than in his native Netherlands. Alongside his novels and travel writing, he translated authors including Ted Hughes, Czesław Miłosz, Brendan Behan and Seán O'Casey into Dutch.
Throughout his career he received numerous honours, including honorary doctorates from universities in Brussels, Nijmegen, Berlin and University College London. And with his passing, Europe loses a writer whose fiction, travel writing and translations left a lasting mark on literature. Rest in peace, Cees Nooteboom.
<social>https://www.instagram.com/p/DUoPcATkhvH/</social>