12 Facts About Georges Eekhoud

Georges Eekhoud was a Belgian novelist of Flemish descent, but writing in French.

Georges Eekhoud tended to portray the dark side of human desire and write about social outcasts and the working classes.

In 1877, the generosity of his grandmother permitted young Georges Eekhoud to publish his first two books, Myrtes et Cypres and Zigzags poetiques, both volumes of poetry.

Georges Eekhoud received some guarded praise by famous authors like Edmond de Goncourt and Joris-Karl Huysmans who both sent Georges Eekhoud a personal letter.

Georges Eekhoud had a distinct style permeated with enthusiasm for the roguish young farm labourers and their rough-and-tumble lives.

Many of these stories contain brazen love stories between men, and Georges Eekhoud even defended Oscar Wilde in "Le Tribunal au chauffoir", first published in the literary periodical L'Art Jeune in September 1895, just a few months after Wilde's conviction, and then in the 1896 edition of Le Cycle patibulaire.

In 1899 Georges Eekhoud offered to his readers a new and daring novel, Escal-Vigor.

Georges Eekhoud makes much less use of the elaborate and old-fashioned words that make the reader stop and wonder.

Georges Eekhoud corresponded with Jacques d'Adelsward-Fersen and contributed to his sumptuous literary monthly Akademos.

Georges Eekhoud befriended and influenced young Jacob Israel de Haan, who authored several poems on themes of his older Belgian colleague, especially La Nouvelle Carthage and Les Libertines d'Anvers.

Georges Eekhoud continued to be a well-respected author until he put on a firmly pacifistic stance in World War I that ravaged Belgium, after which his star declined.

Georges Eekhoud left a voluminous diary of some 5000 pages, that has been bought by the Royal Library of Brussels in 1982.