Occupation Author Nationality Dutch Jewish | Name Ethel Portnoy Role Writer | |
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Born Ethel Portnoy
8 March 1927
Philadelphia, United States ( 1927-03-08 ) Genre Essay, Short Story, Novel Died May 25, 2004, The Hague, Netherlands | ||
Ethel Portnoy (March 8, 1927 – May 25, 2004) was a Dutch Jewish writer. She wrote mainly essays, columns, short stories, travel stories and several novels.
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Biography
Ethel Portnoy was born in Philadelphia but grew up in the Bronx in New York City as the daughter of Russian-Jewish immigrants. She took classes in English literature in New York City and learned French in the United States, then departed to Europe in 1950 with a Fulbright for the University of Lyon. She also studied cultural anthropology and archeology in Paris, with Claude Lévi-Strauss amongst others. She married Dutch author Rudy Kousbroek (1929–2010) in 1951. She raised two children and until 1962 she worked at the UNESCO. She worked for Dutch papers and was published in Randstad, in the weeklies Haagse Post and Vrij Nederland and also in the NRC Handelsblad. The family moved to The Hague in 1970. In the late 1970s Portnoy was one of the editors of the feminist literary journal Chrysallis. Since 1979, she worked at the journal Maatstaf.
Portnoy debuted as a novelist in 1971 at the age of 44 with the book Steen en Been. She wrote in English, but considered herself a Dutch writer. Her books were translated by her (ex-)husband (they were divorded in the 1980s), their daughter Hepzibah Kousbroek (1954–2009) and by Tinke Davids.
Works
Most of her books were published by Amsterdam publisher Meulenhoff.