Poet

Wim Hofman

(The Netherlands, 1941)

Biography

Wim Hofman is best known as a writer of children’s books and as a visual artist. His work has won many awards, for his writing as well as his drawings. Hofman might as well be termed a travel author and builder of rafts, as his main characters are keen explorers sailing their home-built rafts, like Wim in Het vlot (‘The raft’) or driving around in soap-boxes like Monkey and Bear.

‘Writing’, says Hofman, ‘is like a journey one sets outs upon. You have an idea. You know where you want to go, but on your way you come across all sorts of things that meet or don’t meet your expectations.’

Hofman grew up in the province of Zeeland, in the southwestern Netherlands – the sea, the beach with its flotsam and jetsam, the spacious skies – all this stimulated his imagination. Hofman’s early work, featuring the travels of King Wikkepokluk, or Welwel the Wizard, was more fantastic than his later stories: Wim and Het vlot are set in a world more like our own, and are more autobiographical in content.

Hofman’s stories are the products of ‘childish imagination’, but they are by no means carefree stories. In his own words: ‘(.) the world of the child is not the joyful, colourful, adventurous, painless little world that many grown-ups would expect to see (.). It is the same world for all of us’.

Hofman’s poems ‘for grown-ups’ are born from the same imaginative, independent spirit. Many resemble songs. Shanties, some, ballads, others, in their absurdism often resembling the songs of Jacques Prévert, the French songwriter whose work Hofman has translated.

[Wim Hofman took part in the Poetry International Festival Rotterdam 2002. This text was written on that occasion.]

Selected Bibliography

Poetry
Aap en beer : een ABC boek, Van Holkema & Warendorf, Amsterdam, 2001
Wat We Hadden en Wat Niet, Querido, Amsterdam, 2003
Na de Storm, Querido, Amsterdam, 2005
Op zekere dag ziet u plotsklaps de ware liefde, Querido, Amsterdam, 2009
Van Aap tot Zip, Querido, Amsterdam, 2013
Laat Ons Drinken, Querido, Amsterdam, 2013

Prose
Welwel, de zeer grote tovenaar, Querido, Amsterdam, 1969
Het eiland Lapje Loem, Rainbow, Amsterdam, 1972
Koning Wikkepokluk de merkwaardige zoekt een rijk, De Boer De Ruiter, Vlissingen, 2008 (originally published in 1973)
Wim, Van Holkema & Warendorf, Bussum, 1976
Tweede Boek over Wim, Van Holkema & Warendorf, Bussum, 1978
Ansje Vis en Matje Klop, Van Holkema & Warendorf, Bussum, 1979
Straf en Andere Verhalen, Van Holkema & Warendorf, Weesp, 1985
Zip en Andere Verhalen, Van Holkema & Warendorf, Houten, 1986
Uk en Bur, Van Holkema & Warendorf, Houten, 1987
Het vlot, Van Holkema & Warendorf, Bussum, 1989
De Stoorworm, Van Holkema & Warendorf, Bussum, 1989
Klein Duimpje, Moon Press, Bussum, 1991
De Kerstreis, Van Goor, Amsterdam, 1991
Dochters van de kolenboer, Van Holkema & Warendorf, Houten, 1991
Zwart als inkt, Querido, Amsterdm, 1998
Het Rijk van Heen en Weer, Querido, Amsterdam, 2008
Bramen Plukken, Den Boer/ De Ruiter, Vlissingen, 2016

Plays
Puzemuze of op weg naar Rothko, Leopold, Amsterdam, 2013