Hanny Michaelis

Hanny Michaelis (19 December 1922 – 11 June 2007) was a Dutch poet.^[1]

Hanny Michaelis (1966)

The daughter of Alfred Michaelis and Gonda Sara Swaab, both Jewish, she was born in Amsterdam.^[1]

Her parents were sent to Sobibór in 1943^[2] and never returned. She lived in hiding from 1942 to 1945.^[3] After World War II, Michaelis worked for the Artistic Affairs department of the municipality of Amsterdam .^[4]

In 1948, she married the writer Gerard Kornelis van het Reve; they separated in 1959.^[1]

She was awarded the Anna Bijns Prize in 1996.^[5]

Her work has a prevailing tone of melancholy, loneliness and despair, although her last collection of poems has a more vital tone to it and moments of humour.^[4]

Michaelis died in Amsterdam at the age of 84.^[1]

Poetry collections

• Klein voorspel (Little prelude) (1949)
• Water uit de rots (Water from the rock) (1957)
• Tegen de wind in (Against the wind) (1962)
• Onvoorzien (Unforeseen) (1966); received the Jan Campert Prize^[1]
• De rots van Gibraltar (The Rock of Gibraltar) (1970)
• Wegdraven naar een nieuw Utopia (Running off toward a new Utopia) (1971)^[3]