Marsman was born on 14 January 1937 in
Sint Pancras and worked in a number of genres under a variety of pseudonyms, which included Ronnie Appelman, J. Grauw, Cas den Haan, S. den Haan, and Cas de Vries. There had already been a well-known Dutch poet named
Hendrik Marsman who had died in 1940, so this Marsman preferred to take the name of an 8th-century blind
Frisian poet named
Bernlef as his chief
nom de plume. 1958 was a key year in Bernlef's life, during which he spent some time in Sweden, enabling him years later to translate Swedish writers; he also co-edited the English language
A pulp magazine for the dead generation (under the name Henk Marsman) with the Beat poet
Gregory Corso, published from Paris by
Piero Heliczer’s The Dead Language Press. Together with two other poets,
K. Schippers and G. Brands, he went on to visit the
Dada exhibition at the
Stedelijk Museum and inspired by that launched with them the seminal magazine
Barbarber (1958-71). In 1960 his first poetry collection,
Kokkels (Cockles) was awarded the Reina Prinsen Geerligs-prijs. In that year he married Eva Hoornik, daughter of the poet Ed. Hoornik, by whom he eventually had two children. At the same time, his friend Schippers married her twin sister Erica. Later he began writing novels and became widely known for his
Hersenschimmen (translated as
Out of Mind) in 1984. He was an industrious writer and shortly before his death a photo showed the pile of his works as equaling him in height. Bernlef died on 29 October 2012, aged 75, at his home in
Amsterdam after a short illness. One tribute paid to Bernlef then hailed him as "one of the greats of Dutch literature." ==Work==