Born in the village of Glanerbrug in 1918, Bert Schierbeek became motherless when he was young; brought up by his mother’s parents in Beerta, he was schooled by his remarried father. He went to study in Amsterdam in 1940, but was forced shortly thereafter into the Resistance by the German Occupation. The experience of these bleak years led to Terreur tegen terreur (Revolt Against the Past), 1945, his sensitive first novel. After one more “conventional though nonclassical” novel, Gebroken horizon (Broken Horizon), Schierbeek branched out into innovative forms with his explosve Het Boek IK (The Book I), the last line of which, “we go forth moved into other names,” gave rise to the title for De andere namen (The Other Names), which with De derde persoon (The Third Person) completed his autobiographical trilogy.
All eight of Schierbeek’s books of prose-poetry from 1951 on, which he termed “compositional novels,” have a musical form and content—words as notes in a sound-defined imaginal context. De gestalte der stem, 1957 (The Shape of the Voice, 1977) is the first part of a mythologizing trilogy—“to give shape to what man has formed on earth, what he’s performed and deformed in it”—the other books of which are Het dier heeft een mens getekend, 1960 (The Animal Has Drawn a Man) and Ezel mijn bewonder, 1964 (Donkey My Inhabitant). Two books of essays consolidate the central themes of Schierbeek’s second trilogy, De tuinen van Zen, 1959 (The Gardens of Zen) and Een broek voor een octopus, 1965 (Pants for an Octopus). The latter’s deliberations on the creative process led to two other compositional novels, Een grote dorst, 1968 (A Great Thirst) and Inspraak, 1970 (Speak-In), both of which reproduce cinematic “jump-cut” effects with flashbacks to past eras and glimpses of alternative futures. Since then, a new brevity has distinguished his work, as in De deur, 1972 (The Door), In- en uitgang, 1974 (The Way In & Out), Vallen en opstaan, 1977 (Falling & Standing Up), Weerwerk, 1977 (Reaction), and Formentera, 1984. Several of his works have been translated into English.
BOOKS OF POETRY:
Het boek Ik (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1951); De andere namen (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1952); De derde persoon (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1955); De gestalte der stem (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1957);
Een broek voor een oktopus (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1965); Een grote dorst (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1968); Inspraak (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1970); De deur (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1972); In- en uitgang (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1974); Vallen en opstaan (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1977); Weerwerk (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1977); Betrekkingen (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1979); Binnenwerk (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1982); Formentera (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1984); De tuinen van Suzhou (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1986); Door het oog van de wind (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1988); De zichtbare ruimte (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1993); Vlucht van de vogel (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1996)
ENGLISH LANGUAGE TRANSLATIONS:
The Fall (London: Transgravity Press, 1973); Shapes of the Voice, trans. by Charles McGeehan (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1977); Cross Roads, trans. by Charles McGeehan (Rochester, Michigan: Katydid Books, 1988); Formentera, followed by The Gardens of Suzhou, trans. by Charles McGeehan (Montreal: Guernica, 1989); Keeping It Up: The Countryside, trans. by Charles McGeehan (Rochester, Michigan: Katydid Books, 1990)
