The Netherlands, 1940
Mandelstam translator and writer
Kees Verheul
Kees Verheul translated Nadezhda Mandelstam’s memoirs into Dutch, as well as poetry and essays by Osip Mandelstam. After spending a year in the US on a Fulbright scholarship, he studied English and Russian, then violin at the music academy in Rome. He taught Russian literature at various Dutch universities. His essays on literature were collected in Een volmaakt overwoekerde tuin (1987) and Het mooiste van alle dingen. Romeinse essays (1994). His novel Een jongen met vier benen (1982) is based on childhood memories. Over the past few decades, he has been working on a partly historical, partly autobiographical cycle of novels.