THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Dutch novelist, travel writer and journalist Cees Nooteboom, who was praised for his insights into European history and culture and was often tipped as a possible winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, died Wednesday, his publisher announced. He is 92 years old.
De Bezige Bij publishing house said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press that Nootboom “passed away 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, warmth and character of this internationally renowned author,” the publisher added. It did not give a cause of death.
Equally adept at writing novels, poems, songs, journalism or travel stories, Nootboom’s prolific body of work begins 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 classic of Dutch literature.
He continued to write newspaper columns covering socially transformative events such as the entry of Soviet troops into Budapest in 1956, student protests in Paris in 1968, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“The considered structure of his novels and stories, his command of language and the erudition that emanates from each text are recurring themes in many reviews and jury reports,” the National Library of the Netherlands’ website says.
Nootboom’s books have been translated into more than 25 languages, and his works are especially highly regarded by German readers and critics.
Although he never won the Nobel Prize for Literature, he has received many other honors, including all major Dutch language prizes and the 2010 Literature Prize from Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
After spending much of the 1960s and 1970s immersed in journalism and travel writing, Nootboom made a comeback as a novelist in the 1980s with The Ritual, a book that made him a literary star and was made into a Dutch film.
Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced. Nooteboom’s publisher could not be reached late Wednesday and did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
