Jean-Claude Pirotte
| Jean-Claude Pirotte | |
|---|---|
| Born |
20 October 1939 Namur, Belgium |
| Died | 24 May 2014 (aged 74) |
| Occupation | Writer poet Painter |
Jean-Claude Pirotte (20 October 1939 – 24 May 2014) was a Belgian writer, poet and painter. A French language writer, his 2006 novel, Une adolescence en Gueldre, won the Prix des Deux Magots.
Jean-Claude Pirotte was born in Namur a couple of months after the German army had invaded and occupied Belgium. He grew up in nearby Gembloux. Both his parents were language teachers. During the Second World War his father worked with the Resistance, but Jean-Claude found him cold and "military" towards his own family. Pirotte later said he had hated his father: sources record a "tormented" childhood.
Pirotte's first "official" publication was of a book of poetry entitled 'Goût de cendre' (Taste of cinders), published in 1963. Contrary to the expectations of some who knew him at the time, he studied law, however, and pursued a lucrative career as a lawyer between 1964 and 1975, practicing as a successful advocate at the Namur Bar. He was excluded from the legal profession in 1975 because of an offence alleged, and which he would always deny, that he had assisted the escape from prison of one of his clients. Pirotte was also condemned to an eighteen-month prison term. However, rather than staying to argue his case with the judges he took an opportunity to step into his red MG and escape to France, moving on later to Catalonia and then to the Aosta Valley. Having left his wife and children behind in Belgium, he led a "vagabond existence" and managed to avoid capture for the next five years. At the end of that time his sentencing had reached the end of its "shelf-life", and Jean-Claude Pirotte was able to return to Namur and go about his daily life.
He nevertheless resisted any temptation to return to his career as a lawyer, explaining that his clash with the judiciary had given him an opportunity to escape, and the magistrates who had sentenced him to a prison had in a sense done him a favour, because they had given him the opening to live an unconventional live-style. Instead of the law, he devoted the balance of his life to literature and poetry, publishing nearly fifty books, substantial articles, and poems. He was also a painter and applied this talent to illustrating several books.
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