Koning, Hans 1921-2007 (Hans Koningsberger)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born July 12, 1921, in Amsterdam, Netherlands; died April 13, 2007, in Easton, CT. Author. Koning was best known as a novelist but also wrote works of history and travel. As World War II approached, he fled the Netherlands for England, joining the British Liberation Army. After the war, he returned home and edited a weekly newspaper. In 1950, he moved briefly to Indonesia, where he hosted a radio show for a year. Traveling by Dutch freighter, he immigrated to the United States and settled in New York City. Koning began his career as a freelance writer, initially publishing under his real surname of Koningsberger. His first books were Modern Dutch Painting: An Introduction (1955; 3rd edition, 1960) and the young adult novel The Golden Keys (1956). He continued writing such novels as An American Romance (1960), A Walk with Love and Death (1961), and The Revolutionary (1967) under this name, as well as translating books, writing travel works, and publishing the play Hermione (1963). Finding his name often misspelled, he changed it to the simpler Koning by 1972. Under the new name, he released titles such as Death of a Schoolboy (1974) and his popular-but-controversial history Columbus: His Enterprise: Exploding the Myth (1976). In the latter work, Koning accused Columbus and his followers of brutalizing native peoples. Although Koning wrote fiction to entertain, he believed that the best novels, like his nonfiction, also contained a message about the world's injustices. He had a bent for social activism himself, forming the group Resist during the Vietnam War. His more recent works include the novels America Made Me (1979) and De Witt's War (1983), and the nonfiction The Conquest of America: How the Indian Nations Lost Their Continent (1993) and Pursuit of a Woman on the Hinge of History (1998). Several of Koning's novels were adapted to film, including A Walk with Love and Death (1969), The Revolutionary (1970), Death of a Schoolboy (1991), and The Petersburg-Cannes Express (2003).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, April 22, 2007, Section 4, p. 6.

Los Angeles Times,.

New York Times, April 18, 2007, p. A25.

Washington Post, April 23, 2007, p. B6.