Arthur Japin

Arthur Valentijn Japin (born 26 July 1956 in Haarlem, the Netherlands) is a renowned Dutch novelist. His parents were Bert Japin, a teacher and writer of detective novels, and Annie Japin-van Arnhem. After a difficult childhood - his father killed himself when Arthur was twelve years old - Japin entered the Kleinkunstacademie in Amsterdam, where he trained as an actor. He was also briefly an opera singer at De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam. His first novel, De zwarte met het witte hart (1997), translated as The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi, was the story of two Ashanti princes, Kwame Poku and Kwasi Boachi, who were taken from today's Ghana and given as gifts to the Dutch king Willem II in 1837. Based in part on Japin's own traumatic...