Angèle Manteau

Angèle Georgette Ghislaine Manteau, born in Dinant on 24 January 1911 and died in Aalst on 20 April 2008, was a Belgian publisher. According to the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts, which presented her with an award in 2003, she was "the main Flemish literary editor of the twentieth century" and her publishing house has "undoubtedly left its mark on the history of Flemish literature".

She was born in Dinant, her father was a textile manufacturer from Lille and her mother was Belgian. In the late 1920s, she studied chemistry at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) (Free University of Brussels in English) for a while. During these years she rented a room in a Dutch couple’s house, Jan Greshoff - journalist, critic and poet - and Aty Brunt, where she learned Dutch and discovered Dutch literature. She worked a few years for the publisher Alexander Stols, and then in 1932 founded the Algemene Importhandel A Manteau. Six years later, with the financial backing of the Dutch publisher Robbert Leopold, she launched her own publishing house: A Manteau NV.

From 1938 to 1970 the Manteau list included the following Flemish writers: Johan Daisne, Louis Paul Boon, Hubert Lampo, Piet van Aken, Hugo Claus, Jos Vandeloo, Ward Ruyslinck, Jef Geeraerts, Paul Snoek, Karel van de Woestijne, Herman Teirlinck, August Vermeylen. In the 1960s, she launched the Dutch author Jeroen Brouwers, who had worked since 1964 for the publishing house as secretary and then as editor.

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