author
Ina Boudier-Bakker
1875–1966
Best known for De klop op de deur, this Dutch novelist wrote sharply observed stories about family life, class, and the quiet pressures of modern society. Her work made her one of the most widely read authors in the Netherlands in the first half of the twentieth century.
1 Audiobook
Het beloofde land
by Ina Boudier-Bakker
About the author
Born in Amsterdam in 1875, Ina Boudier-Bakker published novels, stories, and plays that often focused on middle-class and upper-bourgeois family life. She became especially well known for her clear, accessible style and her attention to the emotional tensions hidden inside everyday domestic worlds.
Her breakthrough came with Armoede (1909), and her best-known novel, De klop op de deur (1930), followed the lives of three generations of a wealthy Amsterdam family against a backdrop of social change. She was also active in the Dutch women's movement, a connection that fits with her interest in women's lives and shifting social expectations.
Although critics did not always value her work as highly as general readers did, she remained enormously popular and was sometimes called the "queen of the Dutch ladies' novel." She died in Utrecht in 1966, leaving behind a body of work that offers a vivid picture of Dutch society in transition.