Hugo Brandt Corstius


Hugo Brandt Corstius was a Dutch author, known for his achievements in both literature and science.
In 1970, he was awarded a PhD on the subject of computational linguistics. He was employed at the Mathematisch Centrum in Amsterdam. However, to the general public he is mostly known for his writing, in particular as a columnist for Vrij Nederland and de Volkskrant and as linguist and literary critic for Vrij Nederland, de Volkskrant, and NRC Handelsblad.

Pseudonyms

Hugo Brandt Corstius wrote under over sixty different pseudonyms, allonyms and aliases. He claimed each them to be a component of his character.
In Vrij Nederland he used the pseudonym Piet Grijs and between 1979 and 1986 in de Volkskrant he used the pseudonym Stoker. His other pseudonyms include Battus, Raoul Chapkis, Victor Baarn, Dolf Cohen, Maaike Helder, Peter Malenkov and Talisman.
The Battus name was reserved for writing on linguistics and language play, in columns, articles and books. Many forms of word play were bundled in the volume Opperlandse taal- & letterkunde,, and twenty years later a sequel Opperlans!. Both books are concerned with the form of Dutch words with little regard to meaning. He also wrote De Encyclopedie, a book parodying encyclopedias, containing about 300 pages numbered 1 through 40000 or thereabouts, with many puns, references to non-existent pages and other jokes.

Prizes

His daughter Aaf is a columnist and his son Jelle is also an author, and was a correspondent in Russia.
Brandt Corstius died in Amsterdam after a long illness.