[3] Along with Willem Frederik Hermans and Gerard Reve, Mulisch is considered one of the "Great Three" (De Grote Drie) of Dutch postwar literature.

[4] Mulisch's work is also popular among the country's public: a 2007 poll of NRC Handelsblad readers voted his novel The Discovery of Heaven (1992) the greatest Dutch book ever written.

[5] Culture minister Halbe Zijlstra bemoaned the demise of the "Big Three" as Gerard Reve and Willem Frederik Hermans had already died.

[5] Marlise Simons of The New York Times said his "gift for writing with clarity about moral and philosophical themes made him an enormously influential figure in the Netherlands and earned him recognition abroad".

His novel The Discovery of Heaven (1992) is considered his masterpiece and was voted "the best Dutch-language book ever" by Dutch readers in a 2007 newspaper poll.

[2] "It is the book that shaped our generation; it made us love, even obsess, with reading", said Peter-Paul Spanjaard, 32, a lawyer in Amsterdam at the time of Mulisch's death.

Major works set against the backdrop of the Second World War are De Aanslag (The Assault), Het stenen bruidsbed, and Siegfried.