Harry Mulisch and Connie Palmen

In his writing, Mulisch explores reality and at the same time he is constructively searching for the organism of language that, to use Mulisch's words, gives birth to him over and over again like a 'second mother'. Literature as a possibility to find oneself, or rather literature as a possibility to create something as an author, that is what Mulisch and Palmen have in common, despite the great differences between their points of departure in their writing.

"Like every human being, a letter too has a soul and a body. Its soul is what it says, and its body is what it is made of: ink or stone." (Harry Mulisch in Die Entdeckung des Himmels)

lready in his first novels, Mulisch had immediately set the tone for his entire oeuvre. Before you know it, life takes on mythological dimensions, small events lead to great dramas; suddenly one is playing the leading role in a drama of life and death. Mulisch was a master of the oxymoron, of combining concepts that contradict each other, such as The Black Light, in which light and dark are linked.
The first titles by Harry Mulisch to appear in German translation were published by Henri Nannen. After the Second World War, Henri Nannen was a person of great standing in Germany and also chief editor of the weekly magazine Stern (1949-1980). The translation of Het stenen bruidsbed [The Stone Bridal Bed], the story of Norman Corinth who bombarded Dresden during the war and later returns for a congress, appeared with Nannen under the title Das steinerne Brautbett. “[...] one thinks: Aha, the murderer is drawn back to the scene of the crime. But he has no personal sense of guilt; it doesn't matter whether he was over Dresden that night. He is a man of our century and as such entangled in the complex of guilt that the whole generation has to bear; Dresden, the stone bridal bed - because he felt the lust of destructive frenzy - is only the incidental symbol of his complicity for him.” (Fürst, 1960)
In the 1960s, Nannen also published Der Diamant [The Diamond] (1961) and Schwarzes Licht [The Black Light] (1962).

Harry Mulisch was not particularly satisfied with his first publisher in Germany. (Mulisch, Müller, 1989). And not without reason. His first translations were barely mentioned by the press.
In the early sixties Harry Mulisch was observer at the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem. Mulisch's report on the trial (Strafsache 40/61) appeared in the German language area in 1963. His report has much in common with Hanna Arendt's famous book Eichmann in Jerusalem.
The correspondence between Hanna Arendt and Harry Mulisch from 1964 shows that they mutually discovered with some surprise how much "resemblance" (De Goeie, 2014) their records proved to have.
Strafsache 40/61, (transl. Johannes Piron) was published in 1963 not by Nannen but by DuMont. As previously mentioned, Mulisch had not been satisfied with his first publisher. The fact that Henri Nannen, had worked for the subunit "Südstern" of the "SS-Kriegsberichter-Kompanie" named after Kurt Eggers during the war, may have played a role in this decision. Moreover, Nannen also published books by old SS comrades, such as Die Wüstenfuchse by Paul Carell. Willem Sassen, who became known at the end of the 1950s as the interviewer of Adolf Eichmann, was also a member of the "SS-Standarde Kurt Eggers". Had Mulisch found this out in the meantime? Was this ultimately the reason to leave Nannen?
In any case, DuMont, at the time specialised in art books, was also not the right place for Mulisch's new book, it did not get the attention it deserved. This only changed later on.
In 1987, Strafsache 40/61 was re-published and in 1995 again, this time by Aufbau in Berlin. There the book saw three editions until 2002.

A year after the film adaptation of Twee vrouwen [Two Women] (1975) under the title Twice a Woman, starring among others Bibi Andersson and Anthony Perkins, Zwei Frauen was published by Limes in 1980.
The reception of the book was rather disappointing. It was dismissed as a "fabrication of love" (Stern, 1980) as a "constructed story with pseudo-philosophical scribblings" (Stern, 1980). Nevertheless, Zwei Frauen was republished two years later by Rowohlt, in 1998 by Hanser and again by Rowohlt in 2000.
Harry Mulisch's breakthrough in the German language area came about with the publication of the translation of Mulisch's bestseller De Aanslag [The Assault]. Das Attentat, a translation by Anneleen Habers, was published by Hanser in 1986.
Mulish's novel about Anton Steenwijk, who spends his entire life struggling with his trauma from the war, became an almost immediate success. As early as July 1986, the book was voted the best book of the month by the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung.
The criticism is highly laudatory:

"Das Attentat", an important work of literary-dialectical development, can be compared with some of Siegfried Lenz's exemplary works - the novels "Stadtgespräch", "Deutschstunde", the play "Zeit der Schuldlosen". Mulisch, who is one year younger, proves himself to be a distinguished combiner of literary genres in his novel; he fuses the advantages of the novellistic "falcon technique" with those of epic, broad narration and the exciting psychology of revelation and additionally incorporates philosophical prose in his material." (Herms, 1986)

“If an event like this is possible, is it not a sign that world peace is not excluded in principle? Writers, publishers, readers of all countries, unite!” (Mulisch, 1993) (#Fairs)

When the Netherlands and Flanders were guests of honour at the Frankfurt for the first time, Harry Mulisch is already a star. Das Attentat was being sold like hotcakes (23rd edition in 1993) and in the meantime Hanser had published a whole series of new titles: Augenstern [The Pupil] (1989), Die Elemente [The Elements] (1990); Höchste Zeit [Last Call] (1990).
As the "Doyen" of Dutch literature, Harry Mulisch gave the opening address. A few months earlier Mulisch's masterpiece Die Entdeckung des Himmels [The Discovery of Heaven] (1993) had appeared. Die Entdeckung des Himmels is a total novel in which all of Mulisch's themes and motifs come together. It is both a psychological and a philosophical novel, both an adventure novel and a development novel, both a love novel and a mystery novel.
"The Dutch national poet Harry Mulisch reaches for the stars with his "Discovery of Heaven"" (Halter, 1993)
The admiration for Die Entdeckung des Himmels is great. But as far as the quality of the book is concerned, not everyone is of the same opinion.
In Das Literarische Quartett (Das Literarische Quartett 26, 15.8.1993) there was a heated discussion about the meaning of this work, of the "Fireworks of rotten magic " (Helmut Karasek) and the role of Harry Mulisch as "God's representative on earth " (Sigrif Löffler). Anyway, although Marcel Reich Ranicki firmly believed that a novel of 800 pages can only be bad and that Die Entdeckung des Himmels is a book "without poetry" (Marcel Reich-Ranicki), the book hit like a bombshell. By the time the book was so viciously criticised by the members of the quartet, it had already been on the bestseller lists for months.
De ontdekking van de hemel [The Discovery of Heaven] appealed to many readers, not only in the Dutch but also in the German language area, more than 750.000 Dutch copies were sold. In the German language area, the success was comparable. Already in 1995, the 20th edition of Hanser's Die Entdeckung des Himmels hit the market and in 1996, the hundred-thousandth copy of Rowohlt's edition was printed. After 2000, Mulisch's work continued to be observed in Germany, but the successes of Das Attentat and Die Entdeckung des Himmels were not repeated.