Beatrice Sylvia Vianen (6 November 1935 in Paramaribo – 6 January 2019) was a Surinamese writer and poet who goes by the name Bea Vianen. Bea Vianen was the first

Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...

se woman who had a book published by a Dutch publishing house (

Querido Emanuel Querido (6 August 1871 – 23 July 1943) was a successful Dutch publisher as the founder and owner of N.V. Em. Querido Uitgeversmaatschappij, which published Dutch titles, and of , which published titles of German writers in exile from N ...

Biography

Bea Vianen was of both

African African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...

and Indian ancestry. At the age of eight, her mother died of tuberculosis, and she was put in a Catholic

foster home Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home (residential child care community, treatment center, etc.), or private home of a state-certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent" or with a family mem ...

. Vianen went to the Netherlands in 1957 for her Bachelor of Education. Vianen wrote mainly in Dutch, but occasionally in Sranan Tongo, and her writing contained many autobiographical elements. Her first novel was ''Sarnami, Hai'' or "Surinam I am" in 1969, a

coming of age Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can b ...

story of a young East Indian girl in a country torn apart by religious and ethnic differences, and a colonial past. It's a bleak story set in a world without love, but also about a young woman who persists in life. Vianen also wrote poetry, which has been collected in ''Liggend stilstaan bij blijvende monumenten'' (1975). In 1978, she started to work for ''

Avenue Avenue or Avenues may refer to: Roads * Avenue (landscape), traditionally a straight path or road with a line of trees, in the shifted sense a tree line itself, or some of boulevards (also without trees) * Avenue Road, Bangalore * Avenue Road, ...

'' for whom she travelled to places like Peru,

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

and Ecuador. The journeys resulted in many poems, and many personal dramas. Vianen was an admirer of the Trinidadian novelist V. S. Naipaul. Vianen died in Paramaribo on 6 January 2019 at the age of 83.

References

External links

Bea Vianen at the Digital Library for Dutch Literature
(''Sarnami, hai'' and ''Het paradijs van Oranje'' are available as free downloads)
Bea Vianen at Suriname View Literature
1935 births 2019 deaths Dutch-language writers People from Paramaribo Surinamese people of Indian descent Surinamese poets Surinamese Hindus Surinamese women writers Surinamese women poets Writers in Sranan Tongo {{Caribbean-writer-stub