Lisa Kuitert – Professor of Book Studies at the UvA, corresponded with Jeroen Brouwers between 1994 and 2007
‘They were small presents, Jeroen’s letters. They arrived in handmade envelopes, homemade from a flyer or an old calendar. And they dealt with all kinds of personal entanglements. About love, relationships, but also about his writing, he was with Secret rooms in process. When I read that I recognized many of his letters. Jeroen was a polemicist and argued with everyone, but our correspondence was warm and pleasant. He often closed with: ‘Kiss on your head’.
Sander Blom – Publisher of Jeroen Brouwers since 2017
‘That such a great, such a successful writer could still be insecure. That touched me, that modesty. He had almost thrown the manuscript of Client E. Busken in the garbage. In the end he won the Libris Literature Prize with it. He was very happy. Especially with the prize money, he informed me. It’s a shame he never won the PC Hooft Prize. really one faux pas† He was one of the Netherlands’ greatest writers, a sharp thinker and a warm person.’
Dimitri Verhulst – Writer
‘The Big One. That is Brouwers to me. He is my literary father. The dedication with which he wrote. No hula hoops on TV, no silly columns in the newspaper, no, writing, really writing. He knew how to give Dutch, that difficult, stiff language, cadence and rhythm with punctuation marks. I am immensely indebted to him. Every time I met him, my knees were trembling. I am the snot who will always look up to the giant Brouwers.’
Maarten Hart – Writer and friend of Brouwers between 1978 and 1990
‘We wrote long letters to each other. About the books we had read, about our work and about life itself. Sometimes he would call me in the middle of the night to lecture me; he thought I had done something wrong. I occasionally visited him with Maarten Biesheuvel. I can still see us sitting in his kitchen, Jeroen fried eggs. And then gossip about the literary world. That’s probably what we did most of all.’
Tom Lanoye – Writer
‘Brouwers taught me: style is everything. Without style, you write nothing more than shopping lists. No, Brewers. He built language cathedrals. Therefore, he is also the author most popular with other authors. We have all learned from him. He made us better writers. He was critical, he argued, but he was right. His polemical work is unparalleled. I still like his book The last door, about suicide of writers, the very best. A gripping work. Moving, Brouwers could do that too.’