Amsterdam Tales

212 Pages·2017·7.07 MB·English

by  Constantine Helen

Amsterdam Tales

Amsterdam
Tales
Stories translated by
Paul Vincent
Edited by
Helen Constantine
1
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
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Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© General Introduction Helen Constantine 2017
© Introduction, selection, notes, translation Paul Vincent 2017
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2017
Impression: 1
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Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017933154
ISBN 978–0–19–880649–3
Printed in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
Contents
Picture Credits viii
General Introduction ix
Introduction xiii
Joost van den Vondel Goes into
Hiding (1625) 1
Gerard Brandt
Rembrandt Catches a Pupil
Red-Handed 9
Arnold Houbraken
Spinoza is Banned from the Jewish
Community (1656) 15
J. Colerus
Peter the Great Works as a Ship’s
Carpenter (1697) 21
J. C. Nomen
An Opponent Inveighs against the
Tram (1892) 27
W. Otto
vi ■ Contents
Amstel 33
Herman Heijermans
The Black Cat 41
Jacob Israël de Haan
Barricades in the Jordaan (1934) 53
Anonymous
Amsterdam 1945–1946 61
Frans Pointl
Itchy Feet 73
Simon Carmiggelt
Single to Amsterdam 79
Remco Campert
Letter to my Grandson 85
Abel J. Herzberg
Goldfish 103
Anton Valens
Who’s Afraid of Allah Akbar? 111
Pieter Olde Rikkert
He Directs the Traffic 117
Sanneke van Hassel
Massage Parlour 123
Thomas Heerma van Voss
Contents ■ vii
A Stroke of Luck 139
Margriet de Moor
Pain in the Spleen 165
Robert Anker
Notes on the Authors 186
Further Reading 188
Acknowledgements 190
Map of Amsterdam 192
Picture Credits
Page xviii: © iStock.com/GCShutter
Pages 8, 32, 40, 72, 78: © Helen Constantine
Page 14: Rijksmuseum, gift of Mrs Brandt, Amsterdam
Pages 20, 102, 110, 122, 164: © Shutterstock
Page 26: Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Page 52: © Emelha/Wikimedia Commons
Page 60: © Nationaal Archief/Collectie Spaarnestad/Frans Bosen
Page 84: © iStock.com/okeyphotos
Page 116: © iStock.com/InnaFelker
Page 138: © Travelpix/age fotostock
Pages 192–193: map data © 2017 Google
General Introduction
Dwellers in the small fishing village who built a dam over
the River Amstel in the twelfth century would not have
recognized the modern tourist capital attracting 5 million
visitors a year that Amsterdam has become in the twenty -
first. With its 100 kilometres of canals and its many
islands, it has become, like some other modern capitals with
a historical centre, a Unesco World Heritage site which has
been compared to Venice.
Amsterdam has always been an outward-looking cap-
ital. In the Golden Age of the seventeenth century it became
the wealthiest and most important trading city in the world,
sending ships to such diverse places as India, Brazil, and
North America and thus laying the foundations for the
future Dutch colonies. The diversity of peoples who emi-
grated to Amsterdam from those countries is obvious in
today’s cosmopolitan city, where half of the children are of
non-Western origin. Here can be seen one of the widest
varieties of nationalities of any city in the world.