 Together with Hubert Lampo, he was one of the pioneers of magic realism in the Dutch language writing with his novels, the best known of which are "De trap van steen en wolken" (1942), "De man die zijn haar kort liet knippen" (1947) (translated as 'The man who had his hair cut short', 1965), and "De trein der traagheid" (1953).He also wrote screenplays, radio plays and non-fiction.His quadrilingual "Filmografisch lexicon der wereldliteratuur" (3 volumes, 1971, 1973 and 1978) developed from his association with the Knokke film festival.