Hugo Claus
| Hugo Claus | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Hugo Maurice Julien Claus 5 April 1929 Bruges, Belgium |
| Died | 19 March 2008 (aged 78) Antwerp, Belgium |
| Pen name | Dorothea van Male; Jan Hyoens; Thea Streiner |
| Occupation | Playwright, novelist, poet, painter, film director |
| Notable works | The Sorrow of Belgium |
| Spouse | Elly Overzier |
Hugo Maurice Julien Claus (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɦyɣoː ˈklʌu̯s]; 5 April 1929 – 19 March 2008) was a leading Belgian author who published under his own name as well as various pseudonyms. Claus' literary contributions spanned the genres of drama, the novel, and poetry; he also left a legacy as a painter and film director. He wrote primarily in Dutch, although he also wrote some poetry in English.
His death by euthanasia, which is legal in Belgium, led to considerable controversy.
Hugo Claus was born on 5 April 1929 at Sint-Janshospitaal in Bruges, Belgium. He was the eldest of the sons born to Jozef (Joseph) Claus, a printer who had a passion for theater; his mother was Germaine Vanderlinden. Three more sons were born into the family within the subsequent decade: Guido (February 1931 – 9 November 1991), Odo (born January 1934), and Johan (November 1938 – 13 February 2009).
Educated at a boarding school, the young Hugo Claus lived in Belgium during the German invasion of the country in World War II. Several of Claus' schoolteachers during the half-decade of the German occupation of the country were right-wing nationalists eager to support the pro-German government; his father was briefly held in custody for pro-German activities after the end of the occupation, and Hugo was himself swayed into supporting the pro-German Flemish fascist youth movement. Claus' experience with the wartime nationalist right would later become a source for his 1983 book The Sorrow of Belgium, a novel which tells the story of Claus' alter ego Louis Seynaeve. A sympathizer of the political left at a more mature period in his life, Claus lauded the socialist model after a visit to Cuba in the 1960s.
Claus' prominence in literary circles and his debut as a novelist came in 1950, with the publication of his De Metsiers at age twenty-one. His first published poems had in fact been printed by his father as early as 1947. He lived in Paris from 1950 until 1952, where he met many of the members of the CoBrA art movement.
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