F. Springer

Biography

F. Springer (b. 1932) gained a reputation as diplomat and writer, but today devotes himself exclusively to belles-lettres. The novels and short story collections that he published in the seventies, Tabee New York (Goodbye New York, 1974) and Zaken overzee (Overseas Business, 1974) brought him recognition from reviewers, but it was with the novel Bougainville (Bougainville, 1981) a well-constructed, moving book, that he reached a larger readership. In it, a diplomat is confronted with the death of an old friend. His next books, Quissama (1985, about the independent Angola) and Teheran, een zwanenzang (Teheran, A Swan Song, 1991), about the fundamentalist revolution in Iran, take place in turbulent surroundings. What remains is his laconic style, reminiscent of the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald, but always with the ironic perspective of a tragic subject matter. Kandy, his most recent novel, was published in the spring of 1998.

Titles

Bandoeng-Bandung

(Bandoeng-Bandung, 1993)

In the work of the writer Springer it is possible to trace the diplomat Schneider’s postings. New Guinea, New York, Bangladesh and Tehran are discussed in stories and novels. Perhaps it is therefore not so remarkable that, now that Schneider has left the diplomatic service and has the peace and quiet to appraise his life, the writer Springer should have a main character return to the (Dutch) East Indies of his youth. Continued...

Kandy

(Kandy, 1998)

F. Springer is a born writer who has had the advantage of having spent his entire working life as a diplomat. His books’ settings reflect his postings and range from New York to New Guinea, from inland Africa to Tehran at the time of the fall of the Shah. Recently books Springer has drawn on a more distant but no less exotic past: his childhood in the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia), his internment in a Japanese camp, and his repatriation against the backdrop of Asia’s post-war independence struggle. Continued...

Collected Works

(Verzameld werk, 2001)

F. Springer, pseudonym for Carel Jan Schneider, was an administrative officer and diplomat who travelled the world in the service of the Dutch State. He lived and worked in New Guinea, New York, Bangkok, Brussels, Dhaka, Luanda and Teheran, all of which have served as locations for the novels and stories which he has published since his debut, Bericht uit Hollandia (Message from Hollandia) in 1962. Continued...