Gerrit Kouwenaar

Gerrit Kouwenaar was a Dutch journalist, translator, poet and prose writer.

Biography

Kouwenaar was born in Amsterdam, North Holland. In the early 1940s, during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, he wrote various clandestine publications, and worked for the illegal newspaper Parade der Profeten. He was arrested for this and sentenced to six months' imprisonment.
His first collection of poetry appeared in 1949, but he gained wider attention as a member of the Dutch poetry group known as the Vijftigers - the '50s poets'. Kouwenaar worked for magazines and newspapers such as Vrij Nederland, De Waarheid, and Het Vrije Volk. Kouwenaar was awarded the Martinus Nijhoff Prize in 1967 for his translation work.
In 1970, he was given the P. C. Hooft Award. Kouwenaar later won the 1989 Dutch Literature Prize. In 2009, the Society of Dutch Literature named Kouwenaar the recipient of its annual honor. His last published work was released on 9 August 2008, Kouwenaar's eighty-fifth birthday.
Gerrit Kouwenaar's older brother was the painter and poet David Kouwenaar. Kouwenaar died on 4 September 2014 in Amsterdam, aged 91.