Nooteboom, Cees

Cornelis Johannes Jacobus Maris "Cees" Nooteboom is a Dutch author, translator and editor born in The Hague. He lost his father, Hubertus Nooteboom, in a bomb raid in 1945. His mother, Johanna Pessers, remarried in 1948, and the family moved to her native city of Tilburg. Nooteboom’s stepfather sent him to a succession of convent schools where he learned Greek and Latin, and for a short period he was entertaining the idea of becoming a monk. After upper-secondary school in Eindhoven he was employed at a bank in Hilversum in 1951. A few years later he began to travel around Europe.