Hugo Claus

Biography

Hugo Claus was a Flemish poet, writer, painter and filmmaker who won many national prizes, including the Dutch Literature Prize (Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren). In 1951 his first novel De Metsiers was published and dozens of publications followed thereafter, including Het verdriet van België and the collection of poetry De Sporen.

Claus also wrote theatre texts and adaptations of plays such as Orestes by Euripides. In addition to this, he was involved in the Belgian group of the international art movement CoBrA and, from the 1960s onwards, he exhibited his work sporadically.

The multifaceted Claus was also active in the film world. He wrote screenplays for films such as Dorp aan de rivier (Fons Rademakers, 1958), Het mes (Fons Rademakers, 1961) and Pallieter (Roland Verhavert, 1975), and directed De vijanden, Het sacrament and De verlossing, among others. Becoming a filmmaker had been one of Claus's childhood dreams, before he became a famous writer, poet and painter. 'To me, writing started with screenplays. They were close to what I thought was poetry then and were full of Man Ray-like associations', according to Claus.