Marga Minco
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| '''Marga Minco''' (pseudonym of '''Sara Menco'''; born 31 March 1920) is a Dutch journalist and writer. Her real surname was Menco, but an official accidentally switched the first vowel. | '''Marga Minco''' (pseudonym of '''Sara Menco'''; born 31 March 1920) is a Dutch journalist and writer. Her real surname was Menco, but an official accidentally switched the first vowel. | ||
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| + | In 1957 Minco published her first book, ''[[Het bittere kruid]]'' ("The bitter herb"), in which a nameless character goes through war experiences reminiscent of the author's. The title of her later book ''Een leeg huis'' ("An empty house") refers not only to the demolished house that the protagonist finds after emerging from hiding at the end of the occupation but also to the emptiness that she and her friend Yona experience in the postwar years, to which was added the distance and sometimes even hostility displayed by many people in the Netherlands towards returnees from the [[concentration camp]]s. This phenomenon was further described by Marga Minco in her collection of short stories, ''De andere kant'' ("The other side"). | ||
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| + | [[Existentialism]] imposes a special tightness on her work. The main characters, often survivors of the [[Holocaust]], experience their lives as meaningless. Often, they have survived the war only by a series of coincidences, while their loved ones have been murdered. Frieda Borgstein, for example, in the novella ''De val'' ("The Fall"), manages by chance to survive the whole war without falling into the hands of the Nazis who have taken her husband's life. She dies, nevertheless, just before her 85th birthday, by falling accidentally into an unprotected well. | ||
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Revision as of 22:19, 3 January 2022
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Marga Minco (pseudonym of Sara Menco; born 31 March 1920) is a Dutch journalist and writer. Her real surname was Menco, but an official accidentally switched the first vowel.
In 1957 Minco published her first book, Het bittere kruid ("The bitter herb"), in which a nameless character goes through war experiences reminiscent of the author's. The title of her later book Een leeg huis ("An empty house") refers not only to the demolished house that the protagonist finds after emerging from hiding at the end of the occupation but also to the emptiness that she and her friend Yona experience in the postwar years, to which was added the distance and sometimes even hostility displayed by many people in the Netherlands towards returnees from the concentration camps. This phenomenon was further described by Marga Minco in her collection of short stories, De andere kant ("The other side").
Existentialism imposes a special tightness on her work. The main characters, often survivors of the Holocaust, experience their lives as meaningless. Often, they have survived the war only by a series of coincidences, while their loved ones have been murdered. Frieda Borgstein, for example, in the novella De val ("The Fall"), manages by chance to survive the whole war without falling into the hands of the Nazis who have taken her husband's life. She dies, nevertheless, just before her 85th birthday, by falling accidentally into an unprotected well.
