Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer is a Dutch writer, poet and novelist. He wrote complex masterpieces that led him to international fame, such as Het ware leven, een roman (2006) and La Superba (2013). His innovative style led him to stand among the most thought-provoking and intriguing figures of the Dutch literary landscape. Thanks to the broad range of topics and genres he deals with in his books, he is one of the most award-winning modern writers of The Netherlands and the whole of Europe.

Pfeijffer stands out among the Italian audience for his undoubtedly fascinating fashion style. When strolling in Genoa’s narrow caruggi charm, you could easily glimpse a middle-aged man sitting at a terrace of a small café, sipping some rather amber-like drink and holding a cigarette between his fingers, lost in the intimacy and everyday life of the place. And you would be more than sure the man sitting at that café is Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer. He likes to define the terraces of the cafés as his “private offices”, from where he silently looks at the life surrounding him and lets his imagination flow behind the faces of unknown, ordinary people. He tries to guess the stories hiding behind those faces, which often are anything but anonymous. He thickly fills his notebooks with thoughts and ideas that sooner or later he transforms into borderline stories between facts and fiction ready-to-insert in his books. He would appear as a man who came directly out of his novels: long hair, moustache, suit, silk ties with vintage-like golden clips. Anyone would stand mouth wide open simply by his appearance, which oozes an intriguing personality, the one of somebody who knows his mind.

At the very end of 2018, he had the (Italian) world at his feet: this happened when his five-star and most recent novel Grand Hotel Europa was released. It was published in Italy by Nutrimenti (2020), translated by Claudia Cozzi and immediately achieved resounding success all over the country. This novel shows how deeply Pfeijffer is committed to current affairs and contemporary society. It shows the complex relationship between fantasy and reality in love and belief, too. The main topic he deals with is love. He depicts its role in present-day society and finds some interesting connections with mass tourism. Also, he brings up thorny subjects as European identity, homesickness and the inevitable end of an era. The references to Venice and the Italian culture and history are, of course, multiple. The most significant example in this matter is Abdul, the bellhop of the Grand Hotel Europa. Pfeijffer wisely compares the man to Enea, the main character of Virgilio’s Eneide, for his bravery to escape an unsafe place and get to the “Belpaese”, which he sees, as Enea did centuries ago, his new and “promised land”.

Tourism always stays depicted as a bad habit that will sooner or later guide us towards the irreversible destruction of cities, communities and humanity. From this point of view, Pfeijffer wishes the pandemic that has been hitting the world for the past two years becomes beneficial in a certain way. He indeed hopes this situation of uncertainty and lockdown purely shows how fragile a tourism-based monoculture, like the one of Venice, is and could easily and quickly fall. In this gloomy atmosphere, a ray of hope sparks through a kind of irony: the actual Italian perspective. Pfeijffer brilliantly describes Italian and foreign habits with a dash of critic which turns into comedy when he talks about Italian culture. 

“ Pfeijffer’s voice, astonished, sensual and disarmed when he rethinks Clio, harsh and judgmental when he analyzes those who move only to find confirmation of their own prejudices, sympathetic and admiring in listening to Abdul, becomes almost tender and lyrical in his lovesong for the old continent. […] Just enter the majestic lounge of the Grand Hotel Europa and you will know that not even a second will be wasted.”

– Il Piccolo (Italy)

The borderline between facts and fiction finely emerges in all of Pfeijffer’s novels. In this matter, Grand Hotel Europa, however, sparked a different light on the audience. He juggles endlessly between facts and fiction by using the names of real people in fictitious situations. However, real-life is never domesticable to your heart’s content, and it could take its toll. That is what happened when Pfeijffer got one of his book presentations at Venice University cancelled after using the name of Paola Marini, former director of Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, as the name of the fictional powerful rival woman. Pfeijffer assures the woman in the book is not the direct copy-paste of Paola Marini; still, the question got to court. Everything with a slight facts-taste could turn out convenient to make the fiction illusion more truthfully. In this book, we find other notable figures mentioned, as the French essayist Jean Clair, the director of Vatican Museums Antonio Paolucci, and the director of Uffizi Gallery in Florence Eike Schmidt. But, while Pfeijffer refers to these last two men in a confidential and friendly atmosphere, he puts Paola Merini in a bad light, depicting her as jealous and tyrannical. From that moment on, our adopted Dutch writer always had to specify that the facts told in the book were just a figment of his imagination.

The book has been rejoiced in the Dutch and Belgian press and has instantly become a bestseller. Grand Hotel Europa was the most sold book in The Netherlands in 2019 with more than 250.000 copies, and its translation rights got adopted in almost 15 countries.