Maurits Dekker

Maurits Dekker (1941)

Maurits Dekker , completely Maurits Rudolph Joël Dekker (born July 16, 1896 in Amsterdam ; † October 7, 1962 there ), was a Dutch writer of Jewish origin who wrote mainly socially critical novels and dramas. His play The world has no waiting room from 1949, which has the nuclear threat as its background, was also successful abroad . During the German occupation, Dekker was active in the anti-fascist resistance.

life and work

Dekker grew up in the Jewish-proletarian Amsterdam milieu. After elementary school, the son of a salesman and painter and a nurse kept afloat with odd jobs. He discovered the realm of literature in a union library. He was jailed in November 1921 on suspicion of complicity in a robbery, but was released the following March for lack of evidence. This detention experience was immediately reflected in Dekker's first novel Doodenstadt , which had previously appeared in the newspaper Het Volk . The main theme of his early works is "Guilt and Atonement". Despite their melodramatic traits and all too intrusive social agitation, they certainly showed Dekker's talent, but received no or bad reviews. Autodidact Dekker thought the reviewers were biased - in 1929 he passed his novel Waarom ik niet Krankzinnig ben (Why I'm not crazy) as a Russian translation, author Boris Robazki . This work received some praise, although or because it smells like Dostoevsky . Thereupon Dekker unveiled the coup - and continued his career with much greater attention.

Denigration of a head of state

Taking up the contrasting reporting and montage style of the New Objectivity , Dekker gradually found his own stylistic and formal solutions. However, he suffered incessantly from financial difficulties. He wrote for the magazines De Vrije Bladen (Das Umsonstblatt) and De Stem (The Voice) and in 1932/33, together with Jacques Gans , Jef Last , Nico Rost and Frans Goedhart, contributed to the group around the new magazine Links Richten (left blink). However, he soon had to admit that he was too solitary for collective projects, including parties. For the Communist Party he was too "petty-bourgeois", in other words anarchist. In 1937 he published a pamphlet against Hitler, which he had to pay the following year with a fine of 100 guilders for denigrating a foreign head of state. He was lucky: the amount was paid by the US citizen Hendrik Willem van Loon. Dekker promptly traveled to the USA, but renounced exile because he did not want to abandon his wife Maria Engelina Hellingman, with whom he had been married since 1923, and their two daughters. Shortly before the German invasion, he completed Pius , a book about “human despair”, which Lammers counts as one of Dekker's most convincing works.

Warm raisin bread

As a threatened Jew and agitator, Dekker initially considered it appropriate to go into hiding during the occupation; his books were forbidden. Later he worked in a factory. With the support of his wife, he helped Jews to get food cards, identification papers and hiding places. These hard times are reflected in the novel De laars op de nek (The Upside Down Boat) from 1945, which, according to Dekker's letter to an American friend, went "like warm raisin bread" despite the shattered situation in the country. The great success of his play De wereld heeft geen wachtkamer (The world has no waiting room), which was premiered in Amsterdam in October 1949 , gave him a further boost . It deals with the gap between the technical and moral abilities of mankind using the example of atomic danger. Dekker had a particularly influential admirer and supporter in Victor Vriesland . Now for the first time he had significant income as a writer, but soon his wife fell seriously ill (and accordingly costly) and died in 1954. The widower Hendrika married Christina van Assen the following year. He himself was increasingly plagued by rheumatic pain, which also made his writing difficult. Dekker died in 1962 at the age of 66. With 23 volumes of prose and eight dramas, he leaves behind a fairly extensive work, which, however, shows considerable differences in quality.

Awards

• 1949 prijs van de Stichting Kunstenaarsverzet
• 1955 Marianne Philips Prize
• 1956 Special prize from the Jan Campert Foundation for his complete works
• 1956 prose prize of the city of Amsterdam for Op zwart stramien

Works

• Doodenstadt , novel, 1923 (prison life)
• Homo Cantat , "Lyrical prose poem" (A. Lammers), 1924
• CR 133 , novel, 1926
• Zijn Wereld , Roman, 1928
• Waarom ik niet Krankzinnig ben , novel, 1929, under the pseudonym Boris Robazki
• De aarde splijt , novel, 1930
• Amsterdam , novel, 1931
• De man die een anders was , novel, 1931
• Brood (bread), novel, 1932
• Reflex , novel, 1932
• Roodboek , 1933
• De laatste minuut , drama, 1933
• Aan both edges van de drempel , novel, 1934
• De people meenen het goed met de people , novel, 1934
• Oranje , trilogy of novels, 1935–38 (historical)
• Willem van Oranje , drama, 1937
• Inc. Pius beveelt , Roman, 1939
• Mordje de Jood , novel, 1939
• De laars op de nek , novel, 1945 (occupation)
• Jozef duikt , Roman, 1946, German Josef goes under , Munich 1948
• Afscheid , 1946
• Vonnis voltrokken , drama, 1946
• De knopenman , stories, 1947, German Der Knopfmann Bremen 1957
• Panopticum , Drama, 1947
• Het noticedken , 1948
• Amsterdam bij gaslicht , novel, 1949
• De wereld heeft geen wachtkamer , drama, premier 1949, German The world has no waiting room , translated by P. Walter Jacob , Leipzig 1953
• De tooverdoos , 1950
• De other wet , Drama, 1952
• XOX , Drama, 1952
• De afgrond is vlak voor uw voeken , Roman, 1952 (The abyss is at your feet, anti-Bolshevik)
• Voor wie zich zingt , Drama, 1953
• Op zwart stramien , short stories, 1956
• Het others , 1957
• Poes! Poes! , German Pussi! Pussi! A book for real cat lovers , Zurich 1961

Dekker also wrote some radio plays

literature

• David de Jong: Maurits Dekker, zijn persoon en zijn werk , Leiden 1946
• CJE Dinaux: Maurits Dekker , in: Gegist bestek , dl 2, 1958, pages 158–162
• NA Donkersloot: Maurits Rudolf Joël Dekker , in: Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde te Leiden 1962-1963 , 1963, pages 94-98
• WJ Simons in Hakken en spaanders , Amsterdam 1970, pages 103-105
• J. Spierdijk: Maurits Dekkers wereld had geen wachtkamer , in: Andermans roem , 1979, pages 49-56
• A. Lammers: Biographical Woordenboek van Nederland 3 , The Hague 1989
• H. Franke: De lost eer van Maurits Dekker , in: Het Oog in 't Zeil . 8/1991, 4, pages 1-15
• P. Arnoldussen: Het Amsterdam van Maurits Dekker , in: Ons Amsterdam , 46/1994, 1, pages 19-23
• JMJ Sicking: Kritisch Lexicon van de Nederlandstalige Literatuur na 1945 , 1994

Further information in the Dutch National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ dbnl , accessed on May 28, 2011
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} A. Lammers 1989 , accessed on May 28, 2011
3. ↑ Libcom , accessed 28 May 2011
4. ↑ Figure , accessed on May 28, 2011
5. ↑ Here online , accessed on May 28, 2011
6. ↑ dbnl , accessed on May 28, 2011

Web links

• Letters to and from Dekker found: LM 2003