Michiel van kempen having completed his groundbreaking geschiedenis van de surinaamse liter- atuur (history of surinamese literature) in 2003, michiel van kempen now offers a second landmark in the literary history of suriname: a biography of lodewijk (lou) alphonsus maria lichtveld (1903-96), better known under the alias albert helman. unfortunately, little of helman’s legacy is available in lan- guages other than dutch. had he written in english, french, or spanish, he would be counted as one of the most prominent twentieth-century caribbean intellectuals. few people are aware that he was the first (in 1926) to introduce josé vasconcelos’s mestizaje concept in caribbean literature. van kempen started his biographical study in 1989 and accomplished a ver- itable tour de force by capturing helman’s enormous versatility in only 863 pages.what might seem initially to be an exaggeration becomes justified when we take into account the fact that lichtveld used 50 pseudonyms between the ages of 20 and 93, never pausing, and publishing no less than 130 books and hundredsof articles.asatruerenaissanceman,hewroteonsubjectsasdiverse as music, art, film, literature, linguistics, gastronomy, anthropology, politics, andhisownnativeamericanroots.hisimportance,however,goesbeyondthat of an homme de lettres . helman was involved in the spanish civil war; he was a resistance hero during the nazi occupation of the netherlands; he acted as a minister and diplomat in defense of surinamese interests; he became doctor honoris causa at the university of amsterdam; and he corresponded with lead- ing intellectuals of his time, such as béla bártok, george orwell, frida kahlo, and yehudi menuhin. van kempen’s aptly chosen title, rusteloos en overal (restless and everywhere), succeeds well in capturing helman’s eagerness to excel in a seemingly endless variety of fields. this elegantly written biography deserves praise for its thoroughness and its fine balance between accessibility and erudition. van kempen presents an honest portrayal of helman and does not avoid touching on some of his less admirable sides. for example, helman claimed that he wrote his famous denunciation of dutch colonialism in zuid- zuid-west without ever having read multatuli’s maxhavelaar , butvan kempen provides evidence that this is untrue and that also in other cases, helman was less original than he claimed. helman’s obsession with writing was his way of making sense out of what he labeled in his will as “the absolute aimlessness of all goals in life” (p. 637). this nihilistic tone shows how far helman had distanced himself at the end of his life from the catholic ideals of his youth. much of what he wrote regarding