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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 was from the South of the Netherlands and came from a family of water gypsies, who transported goods along the Dutch rivers and canals. He 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, near Denmark, 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 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 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. Emmy grew up listening to daily stories about her parents’ traumatic experiences and deprivations, something brought home by the lack of available accommodation and life on coupons for the early years of her childhood. She heard much about bombings and shootings and fear on the streets and also about the unreliability of other human beings. The threats that Holland was subjected to during the cold war added to this picture of a very dangerous world. She 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 in the dunes, sharing a tiny bedroom with her elder sister. She learnt to stand up for herself by having many years of judo lessons, getting up to blue belt level, and learnt to switch off from the world by reading books, singing in the communal staircase and composing songs and poems. She also loved wandering about in the dunes and on her bike or on skates. She completed a 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. |
