author
Lodewijk van Deyssel
1864–1952
A sharp, provocative voice in Dutch literature, he helped push the bold, modern spirit of the 1880s literary movement. Writing as a novelist, prose-poet, and critic, he became known for intense style and fearless opinions.
2 Audiobooks
Een liefde
by Lodewijk van Deyssel
Multatuli: Multatuli en Mr. J van Lennep; Multatuli en de Vrouwen
by Lodewijk van Deyssel
About the author
Born Karel Joan Lodewijk Alberdingk Thijm in Amsterdam in 1864, he wrote under the name Lodewijk van Deyssel and became one of the leading figures of the Dutch Tachtigers, the influential literary generation of the 1880s. Sources consistently describe him as a novelist, prose-poet, and literary critic, and note that he died in Haarlem in 1952.
He was the son of Joseph Alberdingk Thijm, a prominent cultural figure, and he entered literary life early. Reference sources describe van Deyssel as a major modernizing force in Dutch letters, admired for passionate, highly charged prose and for criticism that could be both brilliant and controversial.
His reputation rests not only on his fiction but also on the energy he brought to literary debate. For listeners coming to his work today, he stands out as a writer who treated style as something vivid and alive, helping to reshape Dutch literature at the turn of the twentieth century.