Harry Mulisch

Biography

Harry Mulisch was born on July 29, 1927 in Haarlem to a Jewish mother and a half-German, half-Austrian father. After his parents divorced in 1937, he was raised by his father’s German housekeeper. The father was joint director of a banking firm which was a repository for stolen Jewish funds. ‘I didn’t so much “experience? the war: I am the Second World War,’ Mulisch wrote in the autobiographical Mijn getijdenboek (My Book of Hours, 1975). Het stenen bruidsbed (The Stone Bridal Bed, 1959) is regarded as the best work from his early period. In addition to novels, Mulisch has written plays, poetry, political pieces and philosophical studies. He is one of the most illustrious authors in the Netherlands today. His work is held in high regard, as witness the numerous awards he has received, including the P.C. Hooft Prize (1977), the Constantijn Huygens Prize (1977) and the Dutch Literature Prize (Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren, 1995). Mulisch gained international fame with De ontdekking van de hemel (The Discovery of Heaven, 1992). The American press compared him with Homer, Dante and Goethe.

Titles

The Stone Bridal Bed

(Het stenen bruidsbed, 1959)

Harry Mulisch is a philosophical author who does not shun the great issues of life. This is evident in his magnum opus De ontdekking van de hemel (The Discovery of Heaven, 1992), which centres on the ungodliness of the world due to progressive technology, and the disastrous consequences for humanity. Although his basic premise is pessimistic, Mulisch offers a way out: for those who perceive the world as essentially in harmony, and who prefer the freedom of art to the yoke of technology, there is still hope. Continued...

Criminal Case 40/61

(De zaak 40/61, 1962)

In her preface to Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963), Hannah Arendt tells us that the Dutch writer Harry Mulisch is one of the few to have shared her views of the character of Adolf Eichmann, the organiser of the Holocaust. In 1961, Mulisch went to Jerusalem to report on the Eichmann trial for a Dutch weekly. His articles were collected a year later and published as De zaak 40/61. Continued...

The Assault

(De aanslag, 1982)

In the ‘hunger winter’ of 1945 a communist resistance-group assassinates a chief inspector of police, Mr. Fake Ploeg. The body is found in front of the Steenwijk family’s house even though they had nothing to do with the murder. As an act of reprisal the parents and brother of the boy Anton are executed by the Germans. The house is burned down. Anton goes to live with the family of an aunt and uncle. Later, he studies Medicine in Amsterdam. Continued...

Incident

(Voorval, 1989)

In Voorval an engineer of a skyscraper still being built says to a colleague: ‘I’m going out for a bit of fresh air’ taking the elevator to the 55th floor as he does so. A sudden gust of wind knocks him from the scaffolding. The engineer is not scared: ‘as long as you’re not dead, you’re alive’ and especially ‘he who falls, is free’. Continued...

The Discovery of Heaven

(De ontdekking van de hemel, 1992)

De ontdekking van de hemel is Harry Mulisch’s magnum opus. All the paths he has taken in his previous work come together in this 900-page novel. The book has 65 chapters, one for each of Mulisch’s years at the time of the novel’s publication. Mulisch, with his hang for numerological symbolism, has given a first hint of the book’s autobiographical nature. In the two main characters, Max Delius and Onno Quist, the reader can recognise much of Mulisch and his deceased friend, the chess player, Jan Hein Donner. Continued...

The Procedure

(De procedure, 1998)

Anyone who reads Harry Mulisch must have a penchant for deciphering codes, tracking down clues, and unravelling enigmas. In the very first paragraph the reader is warned that if he’s sitting back expecting instant entertainment, he would do better to lay the book aside. This warning will not daunt the true reader who will be rewarded, for as always Mulisch’s literary alchemy retains its fascination right to the last page. Ancient myths, historical fact, literary heroes, and biological and chemical discoveries are the components of a compelling plot; they are combined and interlinked to form a new entity, a new creation. Continued...

Siegfried: A Black Idyll

(Siegfried: een zwarte idylle, 2000)

Harry Mulisch has written his best works late in life. At the age of 65 he completed De ontdekking van de hemel, the Faust-sized novel in which he intertwines all his themes with an astonishing dexterity. After discovering heaven, Mulisch found a formula that summarised and explained the universe, on which theme he wrote the novel De procedure. In Siegfried, Mulisch harks back to World War II, the period that plays a central role in his works. Continued...