Pieter Jan Smit

L'ami Hollandais

Pieter Jan Smit

The friendship between the world-famous French writer André Gide and the Dutch writer and Communist Jef Last provides a picture of the political and cultural climate in Europe in the 1930s. During a journey they made together through the Soviet Union, Jef Last was increasingly influenced by the critical attitude of André Gide and came to the realisation that there was no point in clinging on to an ideal that demanded increasing personal sacrifices.