WEBORGERS-

The Belgian Writers

SOME FAMOUS BELGIAN WRITERS...
Due to the existence of two main languages in Belgium: French and Flemish (Dutch), there is a dual literary production. I will concentrate on the best-known authors that received acclaim outside Belgium, and outside the French or Dutch domain.
Their fame was obtained in very different literary genres but all were astounding individuals, their biographies being as interesting as their works!

OUR SELECTION

• Georges Simenon
• Henri Michaux
• Maurice Maeterlinck
• Hugo Claus
• Jean Ray
• Other Belgian writers

• Belgium: A Literature Apart - translated from a short but very informative article by JL Outers, about the Belgian literature in French language.
• FRANK ONLINE 15 - Their 'Foreign Dossier' , in English, is devoted to Belgium. It gives extensive examples of translated texts by contemporary French language Belgian authors. Good selection forming an interesting package. Some illustrations by well-known Belgian artists, such as Magritte, Alechinsky, Bury and Broodthaers.

GEORGES SIMENON

1903-1989


Simenon: the father of Maigret...

Simenon is probably the most prolific author of this Century.
But quality was also present in his work. Amongst he 450 novels and novelettes he published during his life, more than 50 of them have nothing to do with Maigret or mystery fiction, or commercial popular literature.
Most of these novels are deep analysis of the human psychology in plots that reveal all the weaknesses and shadow areas of the human behavior.
But it will be for the 80 novels depicting the investigations of the Commissaire Maigret that Simenon will be remembered by the general public.

... AND IN 1931 MAIGRET APPEARED
Since his teens Simenon was writing and start to publish at 16. He soon left his hometown Liège and Belgium for France were his writer's talent could find more output. He wrote hundreds of pulp-like novelettes under several aliasses during this early part of his career; it certainly gave him the good training as to go to the essentials of a story and to make the economy of words by keeping the sentences clear and short.
This and the strong influence his family sphere had on his childhood, especially his mother, marking heavily the young Simenon were certainly the roots influencing what became his very particular style of writing: cold realism in simple style with essential parts for the characters psychology.

This was also true for the Maigret series that he started to publish in 1931. In the midst of the craze for detective novels in Europe, all influenced by the British authors, Simenon on his side staged Maigret as a simple man with great intuitions, a French police Commissaire (Chief Inspector) that was successful by his own way to observe people and their reactions. There were practically no elaborate scheme for implacable deductions and no theatrical appearances of clues in Maigret's world. It was close to the daily reality of crime: conclusions had to be sought after in people and their cohort of sins.
Success came quickly and the Maigret novels, written in French, were translated in more than 50 languages!

SIMENON: A GIGANTIC WORKING POWER...
By any standard, the productive power of Simenon as a writer is totally amazing. His ability to write fast and to keep rigorous schedules of working were unique. All this without sacrificing the quality.
He was often working from as early as 4 am, through the whole morning, leaving the rest of the day for his other activities. He was famous for preparing the scenario of his plots and profiles of his characters in layouts written with a pencil on yellow envelopes. This habit was helping him to keep his work together and seemed to facilitate his inspiration.
Avid for living his life, he was acting like a nomad in France for long years: changing his residence many times, staying in friend's home, living on a barge... Simenon was a discrete womanizer as revealed in his memoirs, but he paid a lot of attention to his family. Maybe even too much, and so creating problems he could not always solve
After 1945 he stayed in the USA for about 10 years. Later he established in Lausanne, Switzerland until his death.
There are two main books he wrote about his life: an absolute must read to understand the complex character Simenon was.

SIMENON: LITERATURE AND POPULAR FICTION...
If a great part of his work was devoted to detective novels and popular fiction, as with his Maigret series -[see a list of *all* the Maigret titles in their English translation- in an excellent

• Non-Maigret novels (literary):
  • Les Anneaux de Bicêtre- The Rings of Bicetre (aka The Patient)
  • Trois Chambres à Manhattan- Three Beds in Manhattan
  • La Neige Était Sale- The Stain on the Snow
• Maigret and crime novels:
  • Maigret chez les Flamands- Maigret and the Flemish Shop
  • Maigret à l'École- Maigret goes to School
  • Le Voyageur de la Toussaint- The Traveler of the All Saints' Day (aka Strange Inheritance)
  • Les Étrangers dans la Maison- The Strangers in the House
• Autobiography:
  • Pedigree(his youth in Liège -Belgium)
  • Mémoires Intimes(most of the adult life; deeply analytic)

HENRI MICHAUX

1899-1984


Michaux: writer, poet and painter...

Henri Michaux is one of the most innovative modern writer of the first half of this Century.
His writings in French cannot be classified , the best label could be surrealism; however this Belgian author was never a member of the literary surrealism movement headed by its French Pope, André Breton at the time.
Michaux was highly individualistic and his life reflects a kind of quest where there is no Grail, except in our own inside soulful experiences. Full of visions, hallucinations, dreams and fantasmagory is the world of Michaux, opposed to a reality that he cannot decifer from its absurdity.
He was also a rather successful painter during the end of his life.

A LIFE WITH A PARTICULAR ITINARY...
Henri Michaux was born in Namur, a town in the south of Belgium. Very quickly he left the country as a sailor after a hort attempt to learn medicine. After this first experience of travel ling he will continue for several years to visit South-america and Asia (China, Japan, India), but always involving a tough way to grap the country and its nature: climbing mountains and volcanos, descending the Amazon river in a canoe...
He was taking notes and was making drawings all along these travels, which were reflected in his writings and paintings.
He finally set in France, were he concentrated on his writings, looking for new experiences to dismantle the reality and express the absurd.
Hallucinating drugs were at a moment one of his ways to obtain the necessary visions of another reality.


LONELY AND DARING...
Michaux didn't pay attention to public fame or honors. He always made very little concessions either for is art or for his social life; only some of his peers could have his attention. André Gide was certainly responsible for making better known the writings of Michaux that he praised.
Michaux was also a difficult character to apprehend. He openly despised some aspects of the Belgian attitude towards culture and arts in his time, stigmatizing the narrow-minded approaches that could be found then. Most of the times he was refusing any interview.
He finally became French national in 1955.
His work, very personal, meets some magical experience and surreal ambiance.
He was experimenting in a lot of directions: inventing new calligraphy, refining the "automatic writing" and some dada experiences, reconstructing a logic for the absurdity, exploring secondary states of the mind.

• Un Barbare en Asie- A Barbarian in Asia
• L'Espace du Dedans- The Inside Space
• Plume

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