Michaël Zeeman
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Michaël Zeeman (Marken, 12 September 1958 - Rotterdam, 27 July 2009) was a prominent Dutch journalist, writer, and literary critic. In 1991 he received the C. Buddingh' Award (an annual award, named for C. Buddingh', for the best Dutch poetry debut) for Beeldenstorm, and in 2002 he was awarded the Gouden Ganzenveer, given to people who have significantly contributed to Dutch literary culture.
Literary career and criticism
Since 1991, Zeeman wrote columns and essays for the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant, on poetry, prose fiction and non-fiction, music, theater, and visual arts. He also published a number of poetry and short story collections. For two years he was the editor of the arts section of de Volkskrant, but lost that position because he was notoriously difficult to work with; afterward, he worked free lance, and for a while was the paper's cultural correspondent in Rome. His knowledge of literature was immense (he was compared to Kees Fens, the most widely recognized Dutch critic), as was his influence as a critic; especially notable was his feud with Joost Zwagerman, one of the most prominent Dutch writers from the late 1980s onwards, whose novel Chaos en rumoer was "publicly executed" in Zeeman's television program.
