author
Mina Krüseman
1839–1922
A bold Dutch writer, performer, and early feminist, she turned her life into a public argument for women’s independence. Her books and lectures made her one of the most talked-about voices in the Netherlands in the late nineteenth century.
1 Audiobook
Een huwelijk in Indië
by Mina Krüseman
About the author
Born in Velp in 1839, she spent much of her childhood in the Dutch East Indies, an experience that later shaped parts of her writing and public life. She became known in the Netherlands as a novelist, actress, singer, and lecturer, and she used that visibility to speak forcefully about women’s rights at a time when that was still unusual.
She is often remembered as one of the best-known Dutch feminists of the nineteenth century. Alongside her literary work, she gave outspoken lectures, wrote polemical pieces, and built a reputation for independence and controversy. Her name is also linked to the literary world around Multatuli, with whom she famously collaborated and clashed.
In later years she lived partly outside the Netherlands, and she died in France in 1922. What makes her still interesting is the way she crossed boundaries between art, performance, and activism, using each of them to argue that women deserved a freer and fuller place in public life.