Diary
An Interrupted Life
Het verstoorde leven
Etty Hillesum · 1981
Synopsis
From 1941 to 1943, a young woman of Amsterdam keeps her diary. In it she follows her own transformation, under the influence of her therapist Julius Spier, whose secretary, friend and then lover she becomes, and gradually discovers an intense religious life. Around her, the measures against the Jews tighten; yet she refuses hatred and keeps, in the midst of persecution, an obstinate faith in humankind.
Context
Begun in March 1941, the diary fills notebooks that its author entrusted, before leaving for Westerbork, to Maria Tuinzing, so that they would be passed on to Klaas Smelik. Attempts at publication failed until 1979, when his son approached the publisher Jan Geurt Gaarlandt. An abridged edition appeared in October 1981 from De Haan, almost forty years later, followed the next year by the Westerbork letters. The text appeared in English as early as 1983, and Philippe Noble translated it into French in 1985.
Who it is for
A diary of intimate and spiritual reflection rather than a chronicle. It can be read in French and in English, and the 1981 edition is abridged.
Prizes and reception
It became a bedside book throughout the world, compared to Anne Frank's diary; its publication made its author famous overnight.