Gerrit Komrij

It is not easy to decide whether Gerrit Komrij (1944-2012) is first and foremost a poet, novelist, anthologist, translator, playwright or critic. He has proven himself in all of these disciplines. Komrij first came to the attention of a wider public through his reviews and columns. Caustic sarcasm characterise Komrij’s reviews of art and literature and his notorious criticisms of television, the ‘mournful box’. His essays won Komrij the Busken Huet Prize (1979) and the prestigious P.C. Hooft Prize (1993). The poetry volume De os op de klokketoren (The Ox on the Bell Tower, 1982) won the Herman Gorter Prize. 1994 saw the publication of the bulky Alle gedichten tot gisteren (‘All Poems up until Yesterday’), a collection whose title indicates clearly that Komrij has still got plenty of poems up his sleeve. In addition to his poetry, novels and plays, Komrij is also a much-praised translator. In addition, he has also made part of the Dutch cultural heritage accessible to a wide readership through his anthology of Dutch poetry from the twelfth to the twentieth centuries.