The Case of Holland

The article looks at three generations of Dutch and Flemish writers between the Second World War and the present day, arguing that it is possible to see how the subjects and style of narrative alter in relation to the penetration of translations of foreign (mainly English and American) fiction in Holland and in general to the growing internationalisation of fiction and the evident desire to address an audience outside Holland. While the post-war novels were deeply involved in national problems, stylistically dense and evidently addressed above all to a national public, the next generation had begun to transform national problems, and above all a fear of being irrelevant and provincial, into metaphors of an international condition; more recently contemporary Dutch and Flemish authors look for all kinds of strategies to make their work attractive to publishers in other countries.