Novels

In 1980, the very successful novel Rituelen (Rituals) was published, which was later made into a film. That book, the subject of numerous studies both in the Netherlands and abroad, marked the beginning of the second phase in Cees Nooteboom’s career as a writer. He was more productive than ever: at a rapid pace, he published poems, novels, novellas and anthologies of pieces on travel and art, which had an increasingly contemplative slant. In 1987, Nooteboom taught for six months at the University of California at Berkeley, and in 1989 the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) invited him to live for a year in Berlin. He witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, writing many incisive reports on the subject, which appeared in a large number of European newspapers. In Berlin he became friends with philosopher Rüdiger Safranski, who was greatly impressed by Nooteboom’s work, and also with a number of artists, including painter Max Neumann, who later created covers for the new editions of Nooteboom’s work published by De Bezige Bij.

In 1991, his novel Het volgende verhaal (The Following Story) was published as the free gift title for Dutch Book Week. This book was a huge hit in Germany after critic Marcel Reich Ranicki praised it highly on television. Het volgende verhaal became a bestseller and Nooteboom’s other books were also received enthusiastically by German critics and readers. ‘To think you Dutch people have such a great writer!’ The following years saw the publication of translations of Nooteboom’s work in increasing numbers of countries all over the world. By this time, he was viewed as a leading European writer, partly because of the philosophical opinions he expressed about European history and the future of the continent in newspapers and magazines and at symposia. The continuing importance of Berlin and the Berlin atmosphere for Nooteboom is also apparent in his great novel Allerzielen (All Souls’ Day), published in 1998.