Marga Minco

Marga Minco is the pseudonym of Sara Menco (born 31 March 1920) is a Dutch journalist and writer. Her surname was actually Menco, but an official switched the vowel by mistake.

Biography

Born in Ginneken to an Orthodox Jewish family, Minco worked at the Breda Courant in 1938. In May 1940, by order of German-sympathising commissioners, she was fired even before the Germans issued their anti-Jewish measures proclamation.

At the beginning of World War II, she resided in Breda, Amersfoort and Amsterdam. Minco had a mild form of tuberculosis and ended up in hospitals in Utrecht and Amersfoort. In the autumn of 1942 she returned to Amsterdam and her parents, who were forced by the German occupiers to live into the city's Jewish Quarter.

Later during the war, her parents, brother and sister were taken away and she became the only survivor, as she had escaped arrest and spent the rest of the war hiding. Minco also received a new name: Marga Faes, of which the first name persisted. Minco married to the poet and translator Bert Feet (who died 1992) whom she had met in 1938 and hid with during the war. After the war, they worked at a number of newspapers and magazines. They have two daughters, one of whom is writer Jessica Feet.

Work

In 1957 published her first book, The bitter herb (Het bittere kruid), which the nameless character is going through war experiences reminiscent of the author's. The title of her second book was An empty house.

Bibliography

• The bitter herb. A little chronicle (1957)
• The address (1957)
• The other side (stories) (1959)
• counterpart (with Bert Feet) (1961)
• Look ' ns in de (1963)
• The house next door (1965)
• Return (1965)
• An empty house (1966)
• The bitter herb / Stories / An empty house (1968)
• The Trapeze 6 (with Mies Bouhuys) (1968)
• The day my sister got married (1970)
• Mr. Frits and other stories from the Fifties (1974)
• You lucky (Bulk Book No. 46, 1975)
• The address and Other Stories (1976)
• Buy Floro - March (1979)
• Collected Stories 1951-1981 (1982)
• The Fall (1983)
• The glass bridge (Book Week Gift 1986)
• The Glass Bridge (with De Jong : The Jews in hiding) (budget book, 1988)
• The sun is but a bubble, twelve reports dream (1990)
• The bladzij disappeared. Stories for children (1994)
• Unfinished days (1997)
• The writer. A Literary relay (with Harry Mulisch, Oscar Wilde Adriaan van Dis Maarten 't Hart Remco Campert Hugo Claus Joost Zwagerman) (2000)
• December Blues (2003)
• Failure (stories) (2004)
• A leap in time (2008) Presentation at the National Remembrance Day Nieuwe Kerk (Amsterdam). I.v.m. disease M. Minco, read by her daughter Jessica Feet.

Awards

• 1957 - Novell contest of the Post Office and Addresses the Advertising mutators NV for The address
• 1958 - Vijverberg Prize for The bitter herb
• 1999 - Annie Romein Prize for her entire oeuvre
• 2005 - Constantijn Huygens Prize for her entire oeuvre

External links

• Closer to Home - biography

Persondata
Name	Minco, Marga
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	March 31, 1920
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death