Biography

Whilst studying Frank wrote his first journalistic reports. For Dutch newspapers he covered Mario Vargas Llosa's bid to become President of Peru and reported on the American anti-drugs campaign to wipe out the coca-cultivation in the Chapare region of Bolivia.

Frank made two 45-minute radio documentaries for VPRO's Radio 1 programme Het Gebouw. The first, in April 1992, was about the ‘death valley’ in the Grassfields-district of Northwestern Cameroon – a subject he would later revisit in his book Choke Valley. The second was recorded in the completely destroyed town of Vukovar.

In 1992 Westerman settled in Belgrade for national newspaper Volkskrant. At the age of 27 he was the youngest foreign correspondent the newspaper had ever employed. Frank interviewed first lady Mirjana Markovic, wife of the former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, portrayed the stunt team of the ex-Yugoslav fighter jet pilots and was the only Dutch journalist to visit Dutchbat in the besieged enclave of Srebrenica.

In November 1994 Frank Westerman took on a position as editor-reporter at NRC Handelsblad. For the Saturday supplement Z he wrote interviews, portraits, reconstructions and reports on the most different people and events (from the ‘Gang of Venlo’ to artificial intelligence and hard drugs). More than once he returned to the Balkans, where he reported on the operations of Dutchbat and high Dutch officers in the UN peace mission.

From 1997 to 2002 Frank Westerman worked and lived in Moscow as foreign correspondent for NRC Handelsblad in the former Soviet Union. Together with photographer Oleg Klimov he ran a website called ‘Bureau Moskou’. They travelled from Kaliningrad to the Kurill Islands and from the Crimea to the Arctic circle.

Frank’s next book was a result of his stay in Russia. In Engineers of the Soul Frank follows the footsteps of author Konstantin Paustovski and his contemporaries Maxim Gorki, Andrej Platonov and Boris Pilnjak. ‘Engineers of the Soul’ was shortlisted for both the AKO Literature Prize as the Golden Owl Prize and was awarded the Dr. Wijnaendts Francken Prize and the J. Greshoff Prize. The book has been translated into ten languages and was named ‘Travelbook of the Year’ by the Sunday Times in 2010. El País labeled it ‘impossible to exceed’.

In 2004 El Negro and I was published, with which Frank won the Golden Owl 2005. El Negro and I was also shortlisted for the Bob den Uyl Prize for Travel Literature, the AKO Literature Prize, the MJ Brusse Prize for Journalism and the Inktaap. Translations have been published in German, Czech, French, Italian, Spanish, Catalanand Japanese.

Frank completed his book Ararat - set on the fault-lines between religion and science - in February 2007. Five months before publication Harvill Secker bought the English translation rights. Meanwhile the book has been translated into ten languages. Ararat was shortlisted for the AKO Literature Prize, the Eureka Prize for the best science book, the Bob den Uyl Prize for Travel Literature and - abroad - for the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature, the Polish Kapuscinsky Prize for Literary Reportage and the Italian Gaeta Prize for Travel Literature.

On Remembrance Day 2012, preceding the laying of reefs at the National Monument on the Dam in Amsterdam, Frank read the annual Fourth of May Speech in the Nieuwe Kerk, which was attended by the Royal family. His speech Daden van een licht kaliber was published by the National Committee 4 and 5 May in a special booklet, together with the Fifth of May Speech by the German President Joachim Gauck.

Choke Valley (October 2013) is Frank’s first new book published at De Bezige Bij, which Frank joined in the summer of 2012. Two new paperback editions of De Graanrepubliek and Ararat (both October 2013) mark the start of the republishing of Frank’s oeuvre at De Bezige Bij. With Choke Valley (5 hardcover printruns, 5 translations due) Frank reached the shortlist of the prestigious AKO-prize for the 5th time.

In 2014 Frank published his journalistic longread The bookseller's murder with the online publishing house Fosfor. Frank has invested the revenues if this reportage, together with an additional sum, in this Dutch journalistic start-up Fosfor, of which he is co-owner as of 2015. Het will continue to publish his books with De Bezige Bij/The Busy Bee.

Twenty years after the fall of Srebrenica, Frank returned to the Bosnian enclave which he, as a young reporter, had managed to visit twice during the war. In June 2015 he published The battle of Srebrenica: his two former Balkan-books enhanced with a new and actual part III: 'The fall out'. The volume was awarded the 'Prince-bookprize' 2015 for best political book of the year.

in 2018, together with Maite Vermeulen, Frank presented the tv-series The Bridge: four documentaries on (in)famous bridges that connect opposite worlds, like the iconic Mostar-bridge. Frank and Maite exchanged (and published) series of Letters from over the bridge.

Frank spent September and October 2019 at the Ca Foscari-university of Venice, based on the island of San Servolo. He taught reportage within the framework of the Waterlines-project.