 Under his direction, "NWT" combined journalism and literature.Since De Coninck was less of a businessman than a writer, the magazine was not a commercial success.While on his way to a literary colloquium with several other Flemish and Dutch poets and writers (amongst them Hugo Claus, Anna Enquist and Gerrit Komrij), Herman de Coninck collapsed in the streets of Lisbon, Portugal on May 22, 1997.