Dichter
John Leefmans
John Leefmans
(Suriname, 1933 - 2012)
© Tineke de Lange
Biografie
John Leefmans was born in Nieuw-Nickerie, Surinam, into a Jewish family whose ancestors in the 18th century left Dantzig in East Prussia for the Netherlands, and from there dispersed to different continents. The branch that settled in Surinam converted to Catholicism. Leefman’s mother was Dutch Reformed.
John Leefmans published his first poems in the Leiden student paper Minerva and the magazine Kaft. In 1961 he co-founded the magazine Mamjo, published by the Surinam Student Society, of which he was president. He became the magazine’s first chief editor and contributed poetry, essays and criticism. His debut collection, Intro, was published by Orchid Press in the Netherlands and Surinam in 1981. Orchid Press also published his second collection, Terugblikken zonder blozen (Looking back without blushing), three years later. For both collections he used the pseudonym Jo Löffel, after the Surinam corruption of his family name. Leefmans then fell silent until the middle 1990s, when he made his come-back with poems in the anthology Spiegel van de Surinaamse poëzie (1995) and in magazines such as De Gids, Dietsche Warande & Belfort, and Armada.
© Michiel van Kempen (Translated by Ko Kooman)
[John Leefmans took part in the Poetry International Festival Rotterdam 2000. This text was written on that occasion.]Publications (selection):
Intro (1981);
Terugblikken zonder blozen (1984);
Retro (2001);
Op' a batra/Open die fles (2009)
Gedichten
Gedichten van John Leefmans
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