When the AKO Literature Prize was awarded on 11 May 1993, there was no doubt in advance as to who. ‘Will the prize go to Mulisch or Mulisch?’ read a newspaper headline. In the previous year, De Goethe of Leidseplein had published The Discovery of Heaven, his ‘magnum opus’ that ‘no serious critic could ignore’. Still, the prize passed Harry’s nose. The jury awarded Marcel Möring’s great desire. Mulisch reacted stoically. After the last words of the jury chairman in the Amstel Hotel, Parool reporter Matthijs van Nieuwkerk saw only two short smoke signals coming from the writer’s pipe. In retrospect, Mulisch did not think that the choice for another was a compliment for the price.
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