Dutch writer, poet,translator and autobiographer.
His father Arie Marsman 2 February 1861, Utrecht) had a bookshop. His mother was Johanna Hendrika Wormgoor 1 January 1865, Vorden), a teacher. Hendrik was the eldest of three. Hendrik had a poor health (astma, epilepsy), which caused some three years study delay. Already at age 6, he spent four months in a hospital.
He wanted to become a sea captain (1914), but because of poor health, he became a lawyer in Utrecht from 1929 till 1933. In 1935 he left this job, to fully concentrate on literature. Factors were poor health, but also problems in communication.
At the HBS he met the anarchist Paul Arthur Lehning (23 October 1899 8 AM Utrecht- 1 January 2000). When he became bedridden for months because of pneumonia (Febr 1918), he dictated on March 4 Lehning the vitalistic poem “Dageraad”. It was published December 1918 in Stroomingen, after having been refused by Het Getij and Elsevier. Lehning would later help him to publish his first poetry bundle Verzen in 1923.
The next year he contacted Verwey (early 1919), who published De twee schilders, Vrouw, De verhevene and Schaduw in De Beweging (July 1919). During his study Law in Leiden (1922-1928), he went on publishing, writing mostly in verse. In 1925 and from 1929 till 1931 he was an editor of Forum.
On 18 December 1929 he married Rina Louise Barendregt (15 Augustus 1897, Rotterdam), a teacher who was interested in literature. They got no children.
Originally raised protestant, he felt attracted to the Catholic church. Later he was influenced by German expressionists and by Nietzsche. With Ed. Coenraads, he translated “Also sprach Zarathustra” into the Dutch language.
Marsman died in the Bay of Biscay on 21 June 1940 when the ship “Berenice” he used to escape to England was torpedoed and sunk.
Link to Wikipedia