Jan Fabricius

Jan Fabricius (born Assen 30 September 1871, died Wimborne Minster, England, 23 November 1964) was a Dutch playwright and journalist.

Although he wrote continuously from the 1890s to his death, his greatest period of success was during 1904-1916, when his plays sold out theatres in Rotterdam and were translated into multiple languages.

[1] During the height of his popularity he was considered by the Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië to be the leading Dutch playwright writing plays set in the Indies.

[9] While back in Europe in the early 1900s, Fabricius had given advice to the actor Frits Bouwmeester about the conditions in the Indies in preparation for a tour there.

[5] Hence Fabricius wrote a handful of early "Indies plays" including Met den handschoen getrouwd (1906), Eenzaam (1907) and De rechte lijn (1910) which were performed hundreds of times by the Rotterdam Theatre.

[3] In 1938 he retired to rural Dorset, England where he continued to write in English[8] The period of World War II was very difficult for him and his new wife, as he could not receive the royalties from Dutch performances of his earlier plays, which had at least provided him with a minimal income.

[8] To mark the occasion he released a memoir of his early life there, titled Jeugdherinneringen van een Asser jongen (1946).

In 1949, the year the Netherlands recognized Indonesian Independence, Fabricius also released a nostalgic work about colonial times titled Tempo doeloe.