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De dichter en de duivel
Lieke Marsman
(Pluim, 2026)
NETHERLANDS — Lieke Marsman, who was the former Dutch Poet Laureate, died in early June of this year, aged 35. Her writing style was open, funny, wry, layered. From the moment in 2018 she was diagnosed with a rare and terminal form of cancer, the process and practice of dying became a central theme in her work. Her writing also became politically engaged: it was a way, she said, to not be fully swallowed up by the cancer and stave off the loneliness that came with being ill. Poetical precision with words, as an antidote to politicians’ hollow jargon.
Her last book De dichter en de duivel (the poet and the devil; Pluim, 2026) came out in the Netherlands a few days after her death. It topped the national Bestseller 60 in week two. As I write this, another two weeks later, it’s at number six — following the latest Karin Slaughter thriller. It opens:
My life was only half over when I got lost
In a dark wood of manager and real estate agent lingo
Where a series of wrong choices made me lose my path.1
A terminally ill poet descends the chasm she finds in the outhouse in her garden. Dante was 35 when he entered his inferno, same age as Marsman — her life should have only been half over at that time. Her first guide is not Virgil but Dick Schoof: the party-less prime minister of the Netherlands who, between 2024 and 2026, led the most right-wing coalition government in recent Dutch history. As prime minister, he will mostly be remembered for being a punching bag for loud-mouthed party leaders in his coalition.
Like Dante, Marsman’s poet meets local celebrities in hell, who’ll likely have the same weight in the Netherlands today as Pope Boniface VIII or Filippo Argenti had in Dante’s time and place. She encounters well-known characters in the current Dutch media landscape — columnists, politicians, pundits — who, like Dante’s notables, will require some footnotes when Marsman’s journey into hell will be read in 726 years.
Her second guide Gerrit Zalm was finance minister throughout much of the 1990s. While his iconic reassuring smile makes her feel nostalgic, she blames him for breaking down the welfare state, creating a society that only values economic outcome, ignoring human cost: « When you think in terms of crisis as opportunity / then you’ll eventually see only opportunities for crises / and that’s the circular logic we’re flailing in now. »
Eventually, the poet meets the devil. Their awkward conversation is partly an actual transcript of the first time NATO chief Mark Rutte received the new Dutch prime minister Rob Jetten at his Brussels residence (« Super fun. Really, super fun. ») and partly written in the style of how contestants in dating shows speak. « So, that means our adventure ends here. » / « Yeah, I guess this is it. » / « Can I give you a hug? » Different contexts, same kind of hollow phrasing. A much-tormented singing canary who has seen too many coal mines is an antidote to this hollow jargon: « So I will sing / with my whole heart and at the top of my lungs, because nothing / fills the chest so completely / as a last breath. »
- The book hasn’t been translated at the time of writing this, so all translations of Marsman here are my own. ↩︎
