THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Cees Nooteboom, a Dutch novelist, travel writer and journalist who was lauded for his insights into European history and culture and often tipped as a possible winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, died Wednesday, his publisher announced. He was 92.
Publishing house De Bezige Bij said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press that Nooteboom “died very peacefully on his beloved island of Menorca.” The publisher said the message was written on behalf of his wife, photographer Simone Sassen.
“We will miss the friendship, erudition, passion, and idiosyncrasy of this internationally acclaimed writer,” the publishing house added. It did not give a cause of death.
Equally comfortable writing fiction, poetry, songs, news reports or travel stories, Nooteboom’s extensive oeuvre started with “Philip and the Others,” a novel based in part on his experiences hitchhiking through France and Scandinavia in the early 1950s. It became a Dutch literary classic.
He went on to write newspaper columns and report on society-shifting events such as Soviet troops entering Budapest in 1956, student protests in Paris in 1968 and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The Dutch National Library’s website says that the “well-considered constructions of his novels and stories, his mastery of language and the erudition that emanates from every text are recurring themes in many reviews and jury reports.”
Nooteboom’s books were translated into more than 25 languages and his work is particularly highly valued by readers and critics in Germany.
While he never won the Nobel literature prize, he was decorated with many other honors, including all the major Dutch language prizes and the literature prize awarded by Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in 2010.
After immersing himself in journalism and travel writing for much of the 1960s and ’70s, Nooteboom made a comeback as a novelist in the 1980s with “Rituals,” which turned him into a literary star and was made into a Dutch film.
No funeral arrangements were immediately announced. Nooteboom’s publisher was not reachable by phone late Wednesday and did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Mike Corder, The Associated Press
