Neel Doff

Neel Doff

Neel Doff , actually Cornelia Hubertina Doff (born January 27, 1858 in Buggenum , † July 14, 1942 in Ixelles ) was a Dutch author of workers' literature . She wrote her works in French.

Neel Doff was born the third of nine siblings in extreme poverty. The family moved several times and lived in Amsterdam , Antwerp and Brussels . In order to escape the desolate social conditions, she began to model Belgian painters ( James Ensor , Félicien Rops ) and sculptors ( Charles Samuel , Paul de Vigne ).

Using her as a model, Samuel created the Charles de Coster monument on Flagey Ixelles square and Paul de Vigne the little Dutch girl , now in the Brussels Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, and most likely the Cable Monument .

In the artistic community, Doff met Fernand Brouez (1860–1900), whom she eventually married. The son of the wealthy Jules Brouez was editor of the French-language socialist magazine La Société Nouvelle . As a widow Brouez, she married Georges Serigiers, the well-known lawyer from an Antwerp family who were friends with the Brouez '. After his death, Henri Poulaille became its editor; he praised her as "more important than Colette ".

In December 1929 Thibaud-Gersen wrote in Le Courier Littéraire : “When will the simple and ingenious Neel Doff receive the Nobel Prize ?”, Which led to speculation about the award to her in 1930. Because of her contribution to French literature, she was appointed officer of the Ordre de la Couronne in Belgium in 1930 .

Neel Doff died of kidney failure at her home at 16 rue de Naples in Ixelles. She left the author's rights to her Jewish friend Helen Temersen, who sold them to JM Meulenhoff publishing house in the early 1970s . Their house in Ixelles was inherited by the children of the author and librarian Franz Hellens , who lived and worked there. Parts of their property were given to different people, others simply disappeared, including a James Ensor .

plant

Years after her marriage to Georges Serigiers, looking at the children of Antwerp outside her window, she remembered the painful moments of her childhood and published them in Days of Hunger and Misery . In vivid stories she tells the story of the young girl Keetje Oldema who is subject to scorn and humiliation because of her hopeless situation . Her mother accepts that, like her sister before, she is prostituting herself to feed her younger siblings. Proposed for the Prix ​​Goncourt in 1911 , Laurent Tailhade defended her book, but she lacked a vote for the award of the prize. The nomination was unimportant to her. She ended her autobiographical trilogy with Keetje and Keetje Trottin .

Parts of their stories can also be found in other publications. In 1907 the Serigiers moved into a comfortable house in Genk . Inspired by the locals and especially by a family, she wrote numerous short stories in magazines and journals. She lived as a "grande dame" in a select social environment. She also translated works from Dutch into French.

Doff's work has often been compared to Émile Zola . She said: “He wrote about it, I lived it.” Described as “ Dostoevsky of the North”, her character Keetje has parallels to Sonja in guilt and atonement .

Her unaffected style and the social themes of the works were not understood and appreciated by everyone. Émile Verhaeren said, Days of Hunger and Misery ', the book must first be "galvanized" - ie covered with a layer of jewelry.

Works

• Jours de Famine et de Détresse . (Days of hunger and misery). Editions in Brussels and Paris
  • Dutch: Dagen van Honger en Ellende . 1915, 1970
  • Portuguese: Dias de Fome e de Angùstia . Üs. Amelia Pato. Lisboa: Ediçào Liber, 1975.
  • Russian: 1925,1926
  • German: Keetje Tippel . Hamburg: Nautilus / Nemo Pr., 1982
• Contes Farouches . (Bitter Stories) Paris: Ollendorf, 1913.
• Keetje . several publications in Paris and Brussels
• Keetje Trottin . (Keetje, the messenger) one publication each in Paris and Brussels
• Angelinette. Paris: Crès, 1923.
• Campine .Paris: Rieder, 1926.
• Elva, suivi de Dans nos bruyères. Paris: Rieder, 1929.
  • Dutch: Bitter Armoede in de Kempen . Meulenhoff, 1983
• Une Fourmi Ouvrière . (The worker bee) Paris: Au Sans Pareil, 1935.
• Quitter Tout Cela! suivi de Au Jour le Jour . Paris-Nemours: Ed. Entre Nous, 1937.
  • Dutch: Afscheid, gevolgd door Van Dag tot Dag . Amsterdam, 1975.

Translations from Dutch by Neel Doff

• L'Enfant Jésus en Flandre . (The baby Jesus in Flanders). ( Felix Timmermans : Het Kindeke Jesus in Vlaanderen) Paris: Rieder 1925.
• La Maisonnette près du Fossé . (The little house by the stream). ( Carry van Bruggen : Het Huisje aan de Sloot) Paris: Ed. You tambourine, 1931.
• De Vieilles Gens . (About old people and things of the past ...). ( Louis Couperus : Van oude people, de things, the voorbij gaan ...). lost manuscript, unpublished.

media

• Keetje Tippel . (German: The girl Keetje Tippel ). Film by Paul Verhoeven , 1975. contains parts of the trilogy
• Marianne Pierson-Pierard: Neel Doff par elle-même . Brussels. Ed. Esseo, 1964.
• Stefan Brijs: Villa Keetje Tippel . [1]
• Ann-Mari Gunnesson: Les écrivains flamands et le champ littéraire en Belgique francophone. Doctoral thesis University of Gothenburg. (2000)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Le monument Charles De Coster ( French ) art-memoires.com. Archived from the original on February 6, 2012. Retrieved September 13, 2019.
2. ↑ Cable Monument ( English ) wiu.edu. Archived from the original on February 6, 2012. Retrieved September 13, 2019.