Jan Arends

Jan Arends (1925-74) was raised in a Catholic care home and went on to lead a turbulent life, stumbling from one short-lived job to the next. All the while he wrote poems and stories that focused on his battles with officialdom and the medical establishment. He committed suicide in 1974, days before the publication of his final collection of poems Lunchpauze gedichten (Lunch-break Poems). He soon became a cult figure whose work has since been rediscovered by generation after generation.