Tom Lanoye
| Tom Lanoye | |
|---|---|
Tom Lanoye (2008)
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| Born |
Tom Emiel Gerardine Aloïs Lanoye 27 August 1958 Sint-Niklaas, Belgium |
| Nationality | Belgian |
| Occupation | novelist, poet |
Tom Lanoye (his name is pronounced the French way: /lanwa/) was born 27 August 1958 in the Belgian city Sint Niklaas. He is a novelist, poet, columnist, scenarist and playwright. He is one of the most widely read and honoured authors in his language area (the Netherlands and Flanders), and makes regular appearances at all the major European theatre festivals.
Lanoye was the youngest son of a butcher. He attended the Sint-Jozef-Klein-Seminarie College in Sint-Niklaas. At the time it was a single-sex boys’ school. He studied Germanic Philology and Sociology at Ghent University. At that time has was also an active member of the free-thinking Taalminnend Studentengenootschap (language-loving student society) with the name ‘t Zal Wel Gaan. He graduated with a thesis entitled 'The Poetry of Hans Warren'. Tom Lanoye self-published his first work. In his own words, ‘Just like all the punk bands did in those days: out of dissatisfaction with the existing structures, and to learn the trade from the inside out’.
Lanoye is not only a writer, but also an entrepreneur. His company is called L.A.N.O.Y.E. nv. In 2000, Lanoye registered as an independent candidate for Agalev, to contribute to the fight against the extreme right party Vlaams Blok.
Lanoye lives and works in Antwerp and Cape Town (South Africa). His literary work has been published and/or performed in over fifteen languages.
From 1981 to 1982 Tom Lanoye formed a duo with James Bordello (real name Peter Roose) who performed as ‘the Two Last Great Poets of Promise From Just Before The Third World War’. Lanoye also wrote polemical articles for the periodicals De Zwijger, Propria Cures, Humo, and ‘T Zwarte Gat— a student magazine of which he was the editor in chief, and which only published four issues.
1985 saw the publication of his prose debut, the semi-autobiographical novel Een slagerszoon met een brilletje (A Butcher’s Son with Spectacles). After a television appearance on a chat-show hosted by Sonja Barend that same year, he became more well-known. His other books include Alles moet weg (It All Has To Go) (1988), the melancholy novel Kartonnen dozen (Cardboard Boxes) (1991) and the trilogy comprising Het Goddelijke Monster (The Divine Monster), Zwarte tranen (Black Tears) and Boze tongen (Spiteful Tongues) which describes the disintegration of Belgium. A ten-part television series based on this trilogy was broadcast on ‘Eén’, the Flemish public broadcaster’s main channel, in autumn 2011.
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