The Columnist
Donner was also a chess columnist and writer. He was famous for his outspoken and often outrageous columns about subjects such as women, politics, and fellow Dutch Grandmaster Lodewijk Prins, whom Donner claimed "cannot tell a knight from a bishop".
In 1987, the book De Koning ("The King") was published, which contained 162 of his chess columns, all but the last written between 1950 and 1983, collected by Tim Krabbé and Max Pam. Also in 1987, Donner received the Henriёtte Roland-Holst Prize, one of the Netherlands' most prestigious literary awards, for Na mijn dood geschreven ("Written after my death"), a selection from the mini-columns he had written for NRC Handelsblad. On November 27, 1988, Donner died of a gastric hemorrhage. He is buried at Zorgvlied cemetery.
In 2006, New in Chess published an English translation of the complete De Koning, entitled The King: Chess Pieces. An abridged edition had previously appeared in English in the 1990s.
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