About Jan Hein Donner
Johannes Hendrikus (Hein) Donner (July 6, 1927 – November 27, 1988) was a Dutch chess grandmaster and writer. He was born in The Hague. His father Jan Donner was a prominent Dutch politician and judge. Donner won the Dutch Championship in 1954, 1957, and 1958. At the Gijón tournament of 1956 he came third, behind Bent Larsen and Klaus Darga, equal with Alberic O'Kelly. FIDE, the World Chess Federation, awarded Donner the GM title in 1959. He played for the Netherlands in the Chess Olympiads 11 times (1950–1954, 1958–1962, 1968, 1972–1978). He was the uncle of a former Dutch Minister of Social Affairs and Employment, Piet Hein Donner. On August 24, 1983, Donner suffered a stroke, which he wrote happened "just in time, because when you are 56 you do not play chess as well as you did when you were 26". After surviving the stroke, he went to live in Vreugdehof, which he described as "a kind of nursing-home". He was unable to walk, but had learned to type with one finger, and wrote for NRC Handelsblad and Schaaknieuws. The character Onno Quist in the novel (and film) The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch is based on Donner. He was famous for his outspoken and often outrageous columns about subjects such as women, politics, and fellow Dutch grandmaster Lodewijk Prins, whom Donner claimed "cannot tell a knight from a bishop". But totally winning positions I cannot stand." Writing of Lodewijk Prins, after Prins had won the Dutch Championship: "He hasn't got a clue.
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