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Revision as of 15:45, 5 June 2006 by Travelbird (talk | contribs) (Disambiguation link repair - You can help!)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Havank, Dutch writer, journalist and translator, born Leeuwarden, February 19 1904 – died Leeuwarden, June 22 1964.
Havank was the pen-name of H.F. (Hans) van der Kallen, who wrote some 30 very popular crime-novels and stories, featuring French police officers Bruno Silvère and Charles C.M. Carlier, better known in Dutch as 'de Schaduw’ ( the Shadow) as their main characters. Furthermore he translated some 45 novels, mainly of fellow crime writers such as Leslie Charteris, Raymond Chandler and E. Phillips Oppenheim. Most of his books were since the mid 1950s published as pocketbooks and he is estimated to have sold a total of approx 6 million copies. Only two of his own books were translated: into German. Other translations are as yet not known.
In the war years he worked on the editorial staff of the London edition of the Dutch weekly Vrij Nederland, occasionally as a war correspondent. Shortly after the war he was asked to ghost-write the memoirs of Lieutenant-Colonel Oreste Pinto, the original spy catcher. These memoirs were published in the News Chronicle.
Havank lived most of his life abroad, in the south of France, on Mallorca, in England. It may therefore be considered quite remarkable that he suffered his fatal heart attack in his Leeuwarden’s Amicitia hotel room at a less than thirty yards distance from his birthplace.