Jacoba van Velde (10 May 1903, in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

– 7 September 1985, in

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 ...

) was a Dutch writer, translator, and

dramaturge A dramaturge or dramaturg is a literary adviser or editor in a theatre, opera, or film company who researches, selects, adapts, edits, and interprets scripts, libretti, texts, and printed programmes (or helps others with these tasks), consults auth ...

. Her first novel, ''"De grote zaal"'' (''The Great Hall''), appeared in the literary journal ''Querido'' in 1953 and was translated into thirteen languages within ten years. During her life around 75,000 copies of ''"De grote zaal"'' were sold. In 2010, the book was chosen for the ''Nederland Leest'' (Netherlands Reads) campaign and copies were given away for free to members of all the public libraries in The Netherlands.

Biography

Jacoba was the youngest of four children, with an older sister and two older brothers. Her father was often absent during her youth and her mother was a washerwoman. She only went to school until she was ten, but taught herself different languages. At age sixteen, she had already been associated with the company that would later be officially called Bouwmeester Revue for a few years as figurante and then in the dance ensemble. In 1924, she married the violinist Harry Polah; they performed in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. Later, she formed a group with the male dance duo Pola Maslowa & Rabanoff. Together they went along cabarets and music halls in a large number of European countries. In 1937, she married the actor and writer Arnold (Bob) Clerx. Both marriages remained childless. Van Velde lived a great part of her life in Paris, just like her brothers

Geer van Velde Gerardus "Geer" van Velde (5 April 1898, Lisse – 5 March 1977, Cachan, Paris) was a Dutch painter. Biography Early life Van Velde was the second son of Willem Adriaan van Velde, then owner of a small case of inland waterway transport ...

and

Bram van Velde Bram (Abraham Gerardus) van Velde (19 October 1895 – 28 December 1981) was a Dutch painter known for an intensely colored and geometric semi-representational painting style related to Tachisme, and Lyrical Abstraction. He is often seen as mem ...

, who made a name for themselves as painters after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Just after the war, she was a literary agent under the name Tonny Clerx, for the French work of the Irish author

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

. In 1947, she left that position to focus on her own writing. Van Velde's oeuvre remained small; mostly she worked as translator and dramaturge. She translated plays by Samuel Beckett,

Eugène Ionesco Eugène Ionesco (; born Eugen Ionescu, ; 26 November 1909 – 28 March 1994) was a Romanian-French playwright who wrote mostly in French, and was one of the foremost figures of the French avant-garde theatre in the 20th century. Ionesco inst ...

and

Jean Genet Jean Genet (; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels ''The Thief's ...

from French to Dutch, among other things. Her second and final novel, ''Een blad in de wind'' (''A Leaf in the Wind'') (1961), received less critical acclaim. Jacoba van Velde began writing a third novel, ''De verliezers'' (''The Losers''), but never completed it.

Bibliography

* 1947 – ''Évasion'' (story) * 1953 – ''De grote zaal'' (''The Great Hall'') (novel) * 1961 – ''Een blad in de wind'' (''A Leaf in the Wind'') (novel) * 1987 – ''Verzameld werk'' (''Collected works'') (two novels and ten stories)

References

External links

Jacoba van Velde
in dbnl.org
audio-archief
''boeken.vpro.nl''

radio report from ''NOS Journaal'', 12 January 2010

VELDE, Catharina Jacoba van (1903–1985)
''Instituut voor Nederlandse geschiedenis'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Velde, Jacoba van 1903 births 1985 deaths Dutch women novelists Writers from The Hague 20th-century Dutch novelists 20th-century Dutch women writers