Herman Heijermans

Born in Rotterdam to a family that balanced traditional Jewish and contemporary Dutch lifestyles, Herman Heijermans followed his father, who was a journalist, into a literary career. In 1892, he was hired in Amsterdam as a theater critic for De Telegraaf, and, in 1893, had his theatrical debut with Ahasuerus, a play about anti-Jewish violence in Russia which Heijermans published under the Russian-sounding pseudonym Ivan Jelakowitch. Heijermans went on to become the most accomplished Dutch playwright of the era while also producing eighteen volumes of prose sketches about Dutch life under the pseudonym Samuel Falkland Jr. Both as a dramatist and as a prose writer, he addressed Dutch Jewish life extensively as in the play excerpted here. Shaped by Ibsen's influence and a commitment to socialism, his work combines penetrating social critique and compassion for ordinary people.