Karel van het Reve (19 May 1921, Amsterdam – 4 March 1999, Amsterdam) was a Dutch writer, translator and literary historian, teaching and writing on Russian literature.
He was born in Amsterdam and was raised as a communist. He lost his 'faith' in his twenties and became an active critic and opponent of the Soviet regime. With his help, work of dissident Andrei Sakharov was smuggled to the west, and his Alexander Herzen Foundation published dissident Soviet literature.
He is considered to be one of the finest Dutch essayists, his interests ranging from the fallacies of Marxism to nude beach etiquette. His works include a history of Russian literature, 2 novels and several collections of essays. In 1978 Karel van het Reve delivered the Huizinga Lecture, under the title: Literatuurwetenschap: het raadsel der onleesbaarheid (Literary studies. The enigma of unreadability).
His brother, Gerard Reve, was a prominent prose writer.
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Reve, Karel van het |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | Dutch writer, translator, literary historian |
| Date of birth | 1921-05-19 |
| Place of birth | Amsterdam |
| Date of death | 1999-03-04 |
| Place of death | |
Famous quotes containing the words karel, van and/or reve:
“I’m a bad son. Is it the chromosomes, do you think, or is it England?”
—David Mercer, British screenwriter, and Karel Reisz. Morgan (David Warner)
“When van Gogh paints sunflowers, he reveals, or achieves, the vivid relation between himself, as man, and the sunflower, as sunflower, at that quick moment of time. His painting does not represent the sunflower itself. We shall never know what the sunflower itself is. And the camera will visualize the sunflower far more perfectly than van Gogh can.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The reve was a sclendre colerik man.
His berd was shave as ny as ever he kan.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)