Constantijn Huygens Prize winners

Anthonie "Anton" Koolhaas (16 November 1912 – 16 December 1992) was a Dutch journalist, novelist, and scenario writer.

Doctor Frederik Carel Gerretson (born Kralingen, 9 February 1884 – died Utrecht, 27 October 1958) was a Dutch writer, essayist, historian, and politician.

Han Gerard Hoekstra (4 September 1906 – 15 April 1988) was a Dutch poet, best known for his children's literature.

Hendrik (Henry) de Vries (17 August 1896 in Groningen, Netherlands – 18 November 1989 in Haren, Netherlands) was a significant Dutch poet and painter. He was an early surrealist, was liberal-minded, and preached vitality. The subconscious mind plays a crucial role in his poetry.
Much his inspiration came from his interest in Spain and Spanish culture. He visited Spain frequently and became proficient enough to write many poems in Spanish.
De Vries had many collections of his poetry, writings, and artworks published during his lifetime. He also contributed to the literary magazine Het Getij (The Tide).
De Vries' work was included in the 1939 exhibition and sale Onze Kunst van Heden (Our Art of Today) at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Jan van Nijlen (10 November 1884 – 14 August 1965) was a Belgian writer and poet. He was born at Antwerp and died at Uccle.

Marga Minco (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈmɑrɣaː ˈmɪŋkoː]; 31 March 1920 – 10 July 2023) born Sara Menco, and for some time known as Marga Faes was a Dutch journalist and writer, and a Holocaust survivor. She married Dutch poet Bert Voeten.

Gerrit Achterberg (20 May 1905 – 17 January 1962) was a Dutch poet. His early poetry concerned a desire to be united with a beloved in death.
Achterberg was born in Nederlangbroek in the Netherlands as the third son of a family of eight children. He was raised as a Protestant within the Calvinist tradition. His father was a coachman until the automobile gained popularity. Achterberg was a very good student, and in 1924 he embarked on a career as a teacher. In the same year, he made his literary debut together with Arie Dekkers, who had encouraged him to write, together publishing De Zangen van Twee Twintigers (English: The Songs of Two Twenty-Somethings).
Meanwhile, Achterberg became more withdrawn and introverted. After he was turned down by the military due to "sickness of the soul", he threatened to kill himself.
Achterberg's literary career began to take off when Roel Houwink presented himself as his mentor. Achterberg published his collection "Afvaart" in 1931, in which his famous theme, of a love irrevocably lost, was already strongly present. After the publication of "Afvaart", Achterberg suffered a mental breakdown and was committed to a psychiatric institution several times. His mental instability caused occasional violent outbursts.
These eruptions of violence escalated in 1937. At that time, Achterberg was living in Utrecht and was again engaged to be married. On 15 December 1937 he tried to force himself on Bep van Es, the 16-year-old daughter of his landlady. When the latter tried to stop him, he shot and killed her, and wounded her daughter. After the shooting, he turned himself in and was sentenced to involuntary commitment. He was committed until 1943. During this commitment and the period following (between 1939 and 1953), he published 22 collections of poetry.
In 1946 he married his childhood friend Cathrien van Baak, with whom he lived in Leusden until he died from a heart attack in 1962.In 1959, Achterberg received the Constantijn Huygens Prize for his entire body of work.
Achterberg's most famous work is the Ballad Reiziger doet Golgotha (A Tourist Does Golgotha) and the sonnet sequence Ballade van de gasfitter (1953;Ballad of the gasfitter). J.M. Coetzee included this sonnet sequence in an anthology of his English translations of Dutch poetry entitled Landscape with Rowers (2004). Earlier in his career, Coetzee also wrote an essay on this sonnet sequence, titled: 'Achterberg's "Ballade van de gasfitter": The Mystery of I and You' (1977),

Jan Hendrik Wolkers (26 October 1925 – 19 October 2007) was a Dutch author, sculptor and painter. Wolkers is considered by some to be one of the "Great Four" writers of post-World War II Dutch literature, alongside Willem Frederik Hermans, Harry Mulisch and Gerard Reve (the latter authors are also known as the "Great Three").Wolkers was born in Oegstgeest. He became noted as an author in the 1960s mainly for his graphic descriptions of sexual acts, which were often subject of controversy. His 1969 novel Turks Fruit was translated into ten different languages and published in English as Turkish Delight. It was also made into a highly successful movie, the Paul Verhoeven-directed Turks Fruit (1972) which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and in 1999 won the award for Best Dutch Film of the Century.Wolkers declined several literary awards. In 1982 he refused the Constantijn Huygensprijs, and in 1989 he refused the P.C. Hooftprijs.
From 1980 until his death, Wolkers resided on the Dutch island of Texel. He died on 19 October 2007, aged 81, at his Texel home and was cremated in Amsterdam at De Nieuwe Ooster cemetery.
A number of his outdoor sculptures in the Netherlands have been subject to vandalism, presumably due to his use of glass as a construction material. Some examples are the Auschwitz monument in Amsterdam and the monument on the dike at Ceres on Texel. In reaction to the destruction of the monument in 2003, Wolkers announced that he would use less glass and more steel for such monuments in future. The Jac. P. Thijsse monument on Texel does contain more steel, but glass is still a substantial part of the artwork.
Since 2019, the private and literary archive of Jan Wolkers has been available at Leiden University Library.

Jan Greshoff (15 December 1888, Nieuw-Helvoet – 19 March 1971, Cape Town) was a Dutch journalist, poet, and literary critic. He was the 1967 recipient of the Constantijn Huygens Prize.

Pierre Kemp (1 December 1886 – 21 July 1967) was a Dutch poet and painter, the recipient of the Constantijn Huygens Prize in 1956 and the P. C. Hooft Award in 1958. His younger brother was the writer Mathias Kemp.
Kemp was born in Maastricht and died there in 1967. In Limburg, the province where he was born, people made fun of his surname; in several dialects of Dutch and the regional Limburgian language, 'kemp' (as kennep and general Dutch hennep) is the colloquial term for marijuana.