BIOGRAPHY
Early years in the Netherlands
Emma van Deurzen was born on 13 December 1951 in The Hague, Netherlands, the second daughter of Arie van Deurzen and Anna Hensel. Her father’s family came from Weert in the South of the Netherlands, where they had transported goods along the Dutch rivers and canals. Her father, who grew up in the Hague, became an antiques expert (specializing in Russian artifacts and icons, Dutch paintings and porcelain) and he directed the Venduehuis of the Notaries of The Hague and organized antique auctions at Pulchri Studio, a well known art gallery in The Hague. Emmy was fascinated by art and the commercial world from early on. Her mother came from a middle class family, with aristocratic roots in Schleswig Holstein, when it was still Danish, and a history of religious persecution under Bismarck, when the family had to take refuge in the Netherlands. Her maternal grandfather was mayor of Vlissingen as a young man, was a devoted Anabaptist and wrote spiritual poetry, a writing and speaking talent he passed on to his youngest grandchild. During the Second World War Emmy’s mother worked as a nurse in the children’s hospital, taking care of children with tuberculosis and tetanus and was famously allowed to keep her bicycle when the Germans requisitioned all bikes in the Netherlands. Her father, who had narrowly escaped from being taken prisoner by the invaders had to hide, together with several men from the Hague fire-brigade, lying on the rafters in a freezing loft during that long cold final winter of the war when the West of the Netherlands was cut off from the rest of the world and was on its knees, deprived of food, energy, heat and clean water. Her father nearly died when he contracted double pneumonia. Emmy grew up listening to daily stories about her parents’ traumatic experiences and deprivations and the injustices of the war. It was all very real still as the family lived in very cramped conditions, because so many houses had been destroyed by the war. Living on coupons and in relative poverty was as much a part of her early life as listening to stories about bombings and shootings and fear on the streets and also about the unreliability of other human beings and the possibility of betrayal when escaping from persecution and listening to forbidden radio transmitters. The threats that Holland was subjected to during the cold war in the ninety fifties added to this picture of a very dangerous world. Emmy grew up in the South West of The Hague and for most of her childhood and teenage years lived in the top flat of a block based only a stone’s throw from the North Sea, standing in the sand dunes. She shared a tiny bedroom with her elder sister, Ingrid and learnt to stand up for herself by having many years of judo lessons, getting up to blue belt level. She also learnt to switch off from the world by avidly reading books, singing in the communal staircase and composing songs and poems. Much of her childhood was spent playing in the streets and wandering about in the dunes. She loved her bike and her ice skates as well as her uncle’s sailing boat. A serious bike accident at the age of ten led to a stay in hospital and a transformation in the way in which she saw her life and her role in the family. She completed her classical education at the very liberal, nearby Dalton Lyceum, where she was an active contributor to the school newsletter, took small parts in school plays and sang in the choir as well as performing her own songs with the guitar. She became impassioned with Socrates, when studying Plato and passed her final exams in Greek and Latin as well as in Maths, History, Dutch, French, English and German before moving to Montpellier, France. She faithfully kept a diary from the age of 13, learnt to paint in oils and play the recorder as well as the guitar and wrote her first novel, Horizon, at the age of sixteen.
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