Dola de Jong

Dola de Jong (10 October 1911 - 19 November 2003) was a Dutch-American writer.

De Jong was born Dorothea Rosalie de Jong in Arnhem as the daughter of Salomo Louis de Jong and Lotte Rosalie Benjamin. She became a reporter for the Nieuwe Arnhemsche Courant, though she'd fancied becoming a ballet dancer. When that newspaper went bankrupt, she moved to Amsterdam where she combined ballet dancing with her work as a freelance writer and reporter, amongst others for De Telegraaf.

De Jong left in 1940 in fear of a Nazi invasion. Her father, stepmother, and one brother, whom she could not convince to leave with her, were killed by the Nazis. She went to Tanger, Morocco and got married, immigrating to the United States with her husband in 1941. She later divorced him and subsequently remarried. For her novel about war refugees En de akker is de wereld ("And the Field Is the World") (1946), inspired by her stay in Morocco, she won the City of Amsterdam Literature Prize. This novel was republished in 1979 as "The Field." She became an American citizen in 1947. Her 1954 book De thuiswacht (English title The Tree and the Vine) is about a lesbian couple during World War II and is likely her best-known work apart from her mystery novels. It was republished in 1996 by the Feminist Press. In 1963 she was a runner-up for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for The House on Charlton Street, and she won that award in 1964 for The Whirligig of Time. In 1970 she came back to the Netherlands, but returned in 1978 to New York. Five years later, she graduated in psychology and literature from Empire State College at age 72 and taught creative writing there. She died in Laguna Woods, California in 2003.