Willem Nijholt (1934–2023)

Met bonzend hart. Brieven aan Hella S. Haasse is the first autobiography of the Dutch actor Willem Nijholt. It is written as s series of letters to Hella S. Haasse. In recent years, Haasse has become the grand old dame of Dutch letters. Had her letters been included in this book, it would have found a vast readership. Except that.... there are no letters by Haasse. It is explained at the back of the book that Nijholt wrote letters to Haasse but she would telephone. Apparently, it was her intention to get Nijholt to write up his memories of his youth, growing up in the former Dutch colony, now Indonesia. Once a considerable number of letters had been written, she showed them to a publisher, and persuaded Nijholt to publish.

There is a fairly large contingent of Dutch writers with roots in "the Dutch Indies". Many of these writers have known each other for many years, but Nijholt's friendship with Haasse was relatively new. Previously, Nijholt had only published his correspondence with Gerard Reve, Met niks begonnen.

Met bonzend hart is a very open-hearted collection of letters. Although it had been Haasse's intention to get Nijholt to write about his time in the Dutch Indies, in his letters he touches upon a wide variety of topics and episodes in his life.

The letters are written in a very honest and lively style, one might say of an amateur. There is no trace of shame or holding back. Many letters even seem chatty, and there is some openly expressed hatred to other writers, notably Jos Brink. Many passages and anecdotes make you laugh.

Nijholt looks back over his whole life. There is much about growing up in the Dutch Indies, and the time spent in Japanese concentration camps that were set up in Indonesia during the Second World War. Nijholt writes about poverty upon his family's return to the Netherlands, his ambitions and the struggle to become admitted to the Theatre School and his career as an actor. There are portraits of celebrity actors and actresses of the Dutch stage.

Met bonzend hart also tells us a lot about Nijholt's life with his husband, their life in France and their visists to Amsterdam. As a biography, the book is fragmented, but coherent, and one gets a good picture of Willem Nijholt's life. Besides an autobiography, it is also a contemporary picture of the first decade of this century of Amsterdam, and ageing. Nijholt also regularly writes about writers and books he reads.

I enjoyed reading this very much.… (mer)