Harry Mulisch was born in Amsterdam in 1940, but he spent most of his childhood in Poland and Germany. He studied at the universities of Cambridge and Bonn and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. His first novel, The Assault, won the Prix Femina in 1968
He has published fifteen novels, including The Discovery of Heaven, The Assault, The Stranger, The Englishman's Boy, The Swimmer, The Prime of Life, The Red and the Black, Staring at the Sun, A Doubter's Almanac, The King without a Crown. His latest book is an essay entitled 'On Living', which was first published in Dutch as 'Op Leven' (On Living) in 1980. He has also written two volumes on art criticism: On Painting (1964) and On Photography (1973).
In a world full of war, famine, oppression, deceit, monotony, what–apart from the eternal innocence of animals–offers an image of hope? A mother with a newborn child in her arms? The child may end up as a murderer or a murder victim, so that the hopeful image is a prefiguration of a pietà : a mother with her newly dead child on her lap.Harry Mulisch
All cows were like other cows, all tigers like all other tigers - What on earth happened to human beings?Harry Mulisch
