Carry van Bruggen (1 January 1881 – 16 November 1932) was a Dutch writer. She also wrote under the name Justine Abbing.

Biography

One of 16 children of Izak de Haan and Betje Rubens, she was born Caroline Lea de Haan in

Smilde Smilde is a town in the Netherlands' northern province of Drenthe and lies about southwest of the province capital of Assen. Smilde was a separate municipality until 1998, when it became a part of Middenveld. However, that name changed in 2000 a ...

and grew up in

Zaandam Zaandam () is a city in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Holland, Netherlands. It is the main city of the municipality of Zaanstad, and received City rights in the Netherlands, city rights in 1811. It is located on the river Za ...

, later studying to become a teacher. Her family was

Orthodox Jewish Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses on M ...

, which she found stifling. She was the sister of writer

Jacob Israël de Haan Jacob Israël de Haan (31 December 1881 – 30 June 1924) was a Dutch Jewish literary writer, lawyer and journalist who immigrated to Palestine in 1919 and was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1924 by the Zionist paramilitary organization Haganah for ...

. She married , a socialist author, in 1904. She went with her husband to the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

and began writing for the newspapers there. They returned to

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

in 1907 where van Bruggen continued writing for various publications. The couple divorced in 1917; she moved to Laren. In 1920, she married the art historian

Adriaan Pit Adriaan Pit, also known as Aart Pit (25 April 1860, The Hague - 24 November 1944, Nijmegen) was a Dutch art historian, museum director, and writer. Life and work He was born to August Nicolaas Marinus Pit (1822–1880), a lawyer, and his wife, ...

, who was more than twenty years her senior. This was a happier marriage but, after 1928, she frequently had depression and spent time in psychiatric hospitals. Although supportive of feminist issues, she was skeptical of the feminist movements of her time. Similarly, she had an uneasy relationship with the literary establishment, developing her own writing style and stepping outside of prevailing literary traditions; however her quality already 1928 recognized by the important younger critic Menno Ter Braak. Her contribution to the development of Dutch literature was only truly acknowledged after her death. Van Bruggen died in Laren at the age of 51 from an overdose of sleeping pills.

Selected works

* ''De verlatene'' (The abandoned), novel (1910) * ''Heleen'', novel (1913) * ''Een coquette vrouw'' (A coquette), novel (1915) * ''Prometheus'', philosophic essay (1919) * ''Uit het leven van een denkende vrouw'' (From the life of a thinking woman), novel (1920) * ''Het huisje aan de sloot'' (The small house by the ditch), collection of short stories (1921) * ''Avontuurtjes'' (Adventures), novel (1922) * ''Vier jaargetijden'' (Four seasons), novel (1924) * ''Hedendaags fetischisme'' (Contemporary fetishism), commentary (1925) * ''Eva'', novel (1927)

References

Further Readings * Augustinus P. Dierick: “The Discovery of the External World in the Short Stories of Carry van Bruggen (1881-1932).” Contemporary Explorations in the Culture of the Low Countries. Ed. William Z. Shetter & Inge Van der Cruysse. Lanham, New York, London: University Press of America, 1996.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bruggen, Carry van 1881 births 1932 deaths 20th-century Dutch novelists 20th-century women writers 20th-century Dutch journalists 20th-century Dutch women 20th-century pseudonymous writers Dutch Jews People from Midden-Drenthe People from Zaanstad Dutch women novelists Pseudonymous women writers