Boudewijn Maria Ignatius Büch (14 December 1948 – 23 November 2002) was a

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

writer, poet and television presenter.

Early life

Büch was born in a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

family. He was born in a hospital in

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

and spent his childhood in

Wassenaar Wassenaar (; population: in ) is a municipality and town located in the province of South Holland, on the western coast of the Netherlands. An affluent suburb of The Hague, Wassenaar lies north of that city on the N44/A44 highway near the Nort ...

. His father was a civil servant. He and Boudewijn's mother divorced in 1963. Boudewijn had five brothers, one of them the TV-presenter Menno Buch.

Controversy

Büch exhibited pseudologia fantastica, uttering various falsehoods about his life. Tellingly, a 2004 biography has the subtitle (translated) "Report on a mystification". One of these lies was that he was the father of a child that had died at the age of around six. The boy he referred to did exist, but the child was not his and it did not die. This lie formed the basis of his successful novel '' De kleine blonde dood'' ("The small blond death").

Television

One of Büch's most successful television programmes was '' De wereld van Boudewijn Büch'' ( VARA, summer 1988 – autumn 2001), in which he travelled all around the world to show and give his views on various places, people and phenomena.

Bibliophilia

Büch was a

bibliophile A bookworm or bibliophile is an individual who loves and frequently reads or collects books. Bibliophilia or bibliophilism is the love of books. Bibliophiles may have large, specialized book collections. They may highly value old editions, aut ...

, specializing in various subjects, including biology,

Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

and explorers. At his death, he possessed approximately 100,000 books. Furthermore he was very interested in islands, specifically islands that were hard to visit, like

Bouvet Island Bouvet Island ( ; ) is an uninhabited subantarctic volcanic island and dependency of Norway. It is a protected nature reserve, and situated in the South Atlantic Ocean at the southern end of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, it is the world's most extre ...

near Antarctica. He wrote five non-fiction books on the subject of islands, commonly known in Dutch as the 'Islands series'.

Death

Büch was found dead in his house on

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

Keizersgracht The Keizersgracht (; "Emperor's canal") is a canal in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It is the second of the three main Amsterdam canals that together form the Grachtengordel, or canal belt, and lies between the inner Herengracht and outer Prinseng ...

on 23 November 2002 and is believed to have died that day at circa 2pm of a cardiac arrest. Büch was survived by his mother, five brothers and twelve nieces and nephews.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Buch, Boudewijn 1948 births 2002 deaths Book and manuscript collectors Dutch male poets Dutch television presenters People from Wassenaar 20th-century Dutch poets 20th-century Dutch male writers