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The Most Famous

WRITERS from Netherlands

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This page contains a list of the greatest Dutch Writers. The pantheon dataset contains 5,755 Writers, 56 of which were born in Netherlands. This makes Netherlands the birth place of the 24th most number of Writers behind Romania and Ireland.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Dutch Writers of all time. This list of famous Dutch Writers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Dutch Writers.

Photo of Thomas Bernhard

1. Thomas Bernhard (1931 - 1989)

With an HPI of 67.75, Thomas Bernhard is the most famous Dutch Writer.  His biography has been translated into 47 different languages on wikipedia.

Nicolaas Thomas Bernhard (German: [ˈtoːmas ˈbɛʁnhaʁt]; 9 February 1931 – 12 February 1989) was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet who explored death, social injustice, and human misery in controversial literature that was deeply pessimistic about modern civilization in general and Austrian culture in particular. Bernhard's body of work has been called "the most significant literary achievement since World War II." He is widely considered to be one of the most important German-language authors of the postwar era.

Photo of Multatuli

2. Multatuli (1820 - 1887)

With an HPI of 63.01, Multatuli is the 2nd most famous Dutch Writer.  His biography has been translated into 44 different languages.

Eduard Douwes Dekker (2 March 1820 – 19 February 1887), better known by his pen name Multatuli (from Latin multa tulī, "I have suffered much"), was a Dutch writer best known for his satirical novel Max Havelaar (1860), which denounced the abuses of colonialism in the Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia). He is considered one of the Netherlands' greatest authors.

Photo of Isabelle de Charrière

3. Isabelle de Charrière (1740 - 1805)

With an HPI of 62.61, Isabelle de Charrière is the 3rd most famous Dutch Writer.  Her biography has been translated into 61 different languages.

Isabelle de Charrière (French pronunciation: [izabɛl də ʃaʁjɛʁ]; 20 October 1740 – 27 December 1805), known as Belle van Zuylen in the Netherlands, née Isabella Agneta Elisabeth van Tuyll van Serooskerken, and [Madame] Isabelle de Charrière (married name) elsewhere, was a Dutch and Swiss writer of the Enlightenment who lived the latter half of her life in Colombier, Neuchâtel. She is now best known for her letters and novels, although she also wrote pamphlets, music and plays. She took a keen interest in the society and politics of her age, and her work around the time of the French Revolution is regarded as being of particular interest.

Photo of Robert van Gulik

4. Robert van Gulik (1910 - 1967)

With an HPI of 61.71, Robert van Gulik is the 4th most famous Dutch Writer.  His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

Robert Hans van Gulik (Chinese: 髙羅佩; pinyin: Gāo Luópèi, 9 August 1910 – 24 September 1967) was a Dutch orientalist, diplomat, musician (of the guqin), and writer, best known for the Judge Dee historical mysteries, the protagonist of which he borrowed from the 18th-century Chinese detective novel Dee Goong An.

Photo of Etty Hillesum

5. Etty Hillesum (1914 - 1943)

With an HPI of 61.44, Etty Hillesum is the 5th most famous Dutch Writer.  Her biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Esther (Etty) Hillesum (15 January 1914 – 30 November 1943) was a Dutch Jewish author of confessional letters and diaries which describe both her religious awakening and the persecutions of Jewish people in Amsterdam during the German occupation. In 1943, she was deported and murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Photo of Harry Mulisch

6. Harry Mulisch (1927 - 2010)

With an HPI of 60.87, Harry Mulisch is the 6th most famous Dutch Writer.  His biography has been translated into 70 different languages.

Harry Kurt Victor Mulisch (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɦɑriː ˈmulɪʃ]; 29 July 1927 – 30 October 2010) was a Dutch writer. He wrote more than 80 novels, plays, essays, poems, and philosophical reflections. Mulisch's works have been translated into 38 languages so far.Along with Willem Frederik Hermans and Gerard Reve, Mulisch is considered one of the "Great Three" (De Grote Drie) of Dutch postwar literature. His novel The Assault (1982) was adapted into a film that won both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award. Mulisch's work is also popular among the country's public: a 2007 poll of NRC Handelsblad readers voted his novel The Discovery of Heaven (1992) the greatest Dutch book ever written. He was regularly mentioned as a possible future Nobel laureate. He won the 2007 International Nonino Prize in Italy.

Photo of Cees Nooteboom

7. Cees Nooteboom (1933 - )

With an HPI of 58.71, Cees Nooteboom is the 7th most famous Dutch Writer.  His biography has been translated into 33 different languages.

Cees Nooteboom (Dutch pronunciation: [seːs ˈnoːtəboːm]; born 31 July 1933) is a Dutch novelist, poet and journalist. After the attention received by his novel Rituelen (Rituals, 1980), which received the Pegasus Prize, it was the first of his novels to be translated into an English edition, published in 1983 by Louisiana State University Press of the United States. LSU Press published his first two novels in English in the following years, as well as other works through 1990. Harcourt (now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and Grove Press have since published some of his works in English. Nooteboom has won numerous literary awards and has been mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature.

Photo of Dick Bruna

8. Dick Bruna (1927 - 2017)

With an HPI of 56.70, Dick Bruna is the 8th most famous Dutch Writer.  His biography has been translated into 30 different languages.

Dick Bruna (born Hendrik Magdalenus Bruna, 23 August 1927 – 16 February 2017) was a Dutch author, artist, illustrator and graphic designer. Bruna was best known for his children's books which he authored and illustrated, numbering over 200. His most notable creation was Miffy (Nijntje in the original Dutch), a small rabbit drawn with heavy graphic lines, simple shapes and primary colours. Bruna also created stories for characters such as Lottie, Farmer John, and Hettie Hedgehog. Aside from his prolific catalog of children's books, Bruna also illustrated and designed book covers, posters and promotional materials for his father's publishing company A.W. Bruna & Zoon. His most popular designs graced the covers of the Zwarte Beertjes series of books. Well known among his designs are those for Simenon's Maigret books, typified by graphic silhouettes of a pipe on various backgrounds.

Photo of Constantijn Huygens

9. Constantijn Huygens (1596 - 1687)

With an HPI of 56.37, Constantijn Huygens is the 9th most famous Dutch Writer.  His biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Sir Constantijn Huygens, Lord of Zuilichem ( HY-gənz, US also HOY-gənz, Dutch: [ˈkɔnstɑntɛin ˈɦœyɣə(n)s]; 4 September 1596 – 28 March 1687), was a Dutch Golden Age poet and composer. He was also secretary to two Princes of Orange: Frederick Henry and William II, and the father of the scientist Christiaan Huygens.

Photo of Cornelis Tromp

10. Cornelis Tromp (1629 - 1691)

With an HPI of 55.14, Cornelis Tromp is the 10th most famous Dutch Writer.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Cornelis Maartenszoon Tromp, Count of Sølvesborg (3 September 1629 – 29 May 1691) was a Dutch naval officer who served as lieutenant-admiral general in the Dutch Navy, and briefly as a general admiral in the Royal Danish-Norwegian Navy. Tromp is one of the most celebrated and controversial figures in Dutch naval history due to his actions in the Anglo-Dutch Wars and the Scanian War. His father was the renowned Lieutenant Admiral Maarten Tromp.

Pantheon has 56 people classified as writers born between 1487 and 1991. Of these 56, 8 (14.29%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living writers include Cees Nooteboom, Tim Krabbé, and Anna Enquist. The most famous deceased writers include Thomas Bernhard, Multatuli, and Isabelle de Charrière. As of April 2022, 8 new writers have been added to Pantheon including Cornelis Vreeswijk, Macropedius, and Abraham Jacob van der Aa.

Living Writers

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Deceased Writers

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Newly Added Writers (2022)

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Which Writers were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 25 most globally memorable Writers since 1700.