LGBT literature in the Dutch-language area

LGBT Literature in the Dutch-language area comprises the works from writers from de Lage Landen, that is Flanders and the Netherlands, using themes or characters that form a part of, or are related to, sexual diversity.

[2] Words like sodomy, pederast and hermaphrodite existed and had their Dutch-language counterpart, but only very partially covered what would become LGBT (Dutch equivalent: holebi) in a more modern understanding.

Nonetheless Dien avond en die rooze (That Evening and that Rose) is generally understood to have been a love-poem for Eugène van Oye, one of his students he had befriended.

Other Tachtigers with same-sex tendencies, like Willem Kloos, writing passionate poems about men, and Lodewijk van Deyssel, describing a special friendship with one of his fellow students in his 1889 De kleine republiek, repressed their feelings.

Jacob Israël de Haan describes living in the Netherlands as a nightmare that continues after waking up,[8] and looked for Eekhoud as an ally to escape from this narrowminded society[9] when dedicating his "rape of Jesus" short story to him.

Also for homosexuality this genre was practiced, for instance Feenstra Kuiper's 1905 illustrated pornographic novel Jeugdige zondaars te Constantinopel (Youthful Sinners in Constantinople), reading as a gay tour guide to the city.

[7] Easy-reading novels, usually with a melodramatic plot, were provided by M. J. J. Exler (Levensleed, 1911), Marie Metz-Koning, and Maurits Wagenvoort (Het koffiehuis met de roode buisjes, 1916).

[11] In 1883 N. B. Donkersloot, editor of a medical journal, was the first to publish a testimony originally written in Dutch of a man preferring same-sex.

[14] Lucien von Römer, who had written love poetry for a man when he was young, published in Hirschfeld's journal in the early 20th century.

Her contributions to literature are limited; the best known is her tampering with the text of Lady Chatterley's Lover, which led its author, D. H. Lawrence, to be discontented with the first print of that work.

[18] During his Berlin period (1918—21) Belgian avant-garde poet Paul van Ostaijen wrote homoerotic letters, and would have experimented with gay sex.

[20][21] New melodramatic novels, similar in plot to those that were published before the end of the war, were published by J. H. François, writing under the pen name Charlie van Heezen (Anders, 1918 and Het masker, 1922), Johan de Meester (Walmende lampen, 1920), Bernard Brondgeest (Doolhof, 1921), Wilma (God's gevangene, 1923), and Adolphe Engers together with Ernst Winar (Peccavi...???

Carry van Bruggen, sister of Jacob Israël de Haan, published her partly autobiographical novel Eva in 1927.

[23] Josine Reuling's 1937 novel Terug naar het eiland can be read as a commentary on Radclyffe Hall's 1928 The Well of Loneliness.

[28] In 1929 Ernest Michel published an anti-gay writing Anti-homo: Een geschrift tegen de weekdieren onzer samenleving.

[29] Koos Vorrink warned against homosexuality in his 1933 Om de vrije mens der nieuwe gemeenschap: Opvoeding tot het demokratiese socialisme.

In 1966 Gerard Reve's Nader tot U was published, containing a description of the author having sex with God in the guise of a young donkey — the press was alarmed.

[33] It took to the early 1980s, with a series of short stories by De Haan republished, that the press started to realize that Reve had been less ground-breaking on LGBT themes in the Dutch-language area than assumed.

Within a year after publication De Avonden had received 50 book reports in the press,[36] and by the end of the 1960s it was considered a timeless classic of Dutch literature.

Further novels by Reve with a homosexual theme include Melancholia (1951), In God we Trust (two chapters published in 1957), Op weg naar het einde (1963), Nader tot U (1966), and Prison Song in Prose (1967).

[27] Among the Dutch female writers addressing homosexuality in the post-war generation was Anna Blaman: the erotic passages of her 1948 novel Eenzaam avontuur (Lonely Adventure) stirred contemporary authors to a fake process so-called regarding her literary style.

[41] There was also Dola de Jong, whose book The Tree and the Vine was first published in 1951 (after she had moved to America fleeing the Nazis); it is about a lesbian couple during World War II and is likely her best-known work apart from her mystery novels.

[43] In Belgium there was another author from Flanders writing in French: with her 1951 novel Le Rempart des Béguines Françoise Mallet-Joris creates a succès de scandale over its lesbian content.

[44] Andreas Burnier (pseudonym for Catharina Irma Dessaur): first novel Een tevreden lach (1965) describes how she discovered being a lesbian.

Gerard Reve contributed to another COC periodical Dialoog from 1965 to 1967, provoking a lawsuit over his description of intercourse with God in the guise of a donkey (which he eventually won).

[56] The Dutch comic artists Floor de Goede, Ype Driessen and Abe Borst are mostly known for their autobiographical webcomics.

In 1984 actor Albert Mol wrote his autobiography "Zo" zijn, which also covered gay life in the Netherlands before the second World War.

Other LGBT novelists of this generation include Flemish Luc Boudens and Paul Mennes, and Koos Prinsloo from South-Africa.

[59] Non-profit organisations like Behoud de Begeerte continue the tradition of bringing together authors from the Low Countries in literary events.

Participants include Tom Lanoye, Gerrit Komrij, Dimitri Verhulst, Saskia de Coster, Erwin Mortier and Bart Stouten.