Marion Bloem
Marion Bloem was born in Arnhem in 1952, the daughter of East Indian parents who had moved to the Netherlands two years earlier. In 1976 Bloem graduated in clinical psychology. After a period in which she wrote children’s books, directed films and wrote film-scripts, she embarked upon her literary career with the remarkable novel Geen gewoon Indisch meisje (1983). It was succeeded by four novels: Rio (1987), Lange reizen korte liefdes (‘Long Journeys Brief Loves’ 1987), Vaders van betekenis (1989), De honden van Slipi (‘The Dogs Of Slipi’, 1992), and a collection of short stories entitled Vliegers onder het matras (‘Kites Under The Mattress’, 1990).