21 Facts About Hugo Claus

Hugo Maurice Julien Claus was a leading Belgian author who published under his own name as well as various pseudonyms.

Hugo Claus wrote primarily in Dutch, although he wrote some poetry in English.

Hugo Claus won the 2000 International Nonino Prize in Italy.

Hugo Claus was born on 5 April 1929 at Sint-Janshospitaal in Bruges, Belgium.

Hugo Claus was the eldest of four sons born to Jozef Claus and Germaine Vanderlinden.

Hugo Claus was educated at a boarding school led by nuns in Aalbeke and experienced the German occupation of Belgium during World War II.

Many of Hugo Claus' teachers were Flemish nationalists who were sympathetic to fascism, and Hugo Claus joined the pro-German youth wing of the Flemish National Union.

Hugo Claus's father was briefly detained after the Liberation for collaborationism.

Hugo Claus's first published poems had in fact been printed by his father as early as 1947.

Hugo Claus lived in Paris from 1950 until 1952, where he met many of the members of the CoBrA art movement.

From February 1953 until the beginning of 1955, Hugo Claus lived in Italy where his girlfriend Elly Overzier was born on in 1928 and acted in a few films.

Journalist Guy Duplat recalls that Hugo Claus had organized in Knokke the election of a "Miss Knokke Festival", which was a typical beauty contest, except for the Hugo Claus ruling that the members of the all-male jury would have to be naked.

Hugo Claus was considered to be one of the most important contemporary Belgian authors.

Hugo Claus published the novel Schola Nostra under the pseudonym Dorothea Van Male.

Hugo Claus wrote the script of a satirical comic strip, "De Avonturen van Belgman" in 1967, which spoofed the Belgian bi-lingual troubles.

Hugo Claus' name had been put forward many times for the Nobel Prize in literature, on which he would casually comment "this prize money would suit me fine".

Hugo Claus had developed friendships with some of its members, and illustrated a book by Pierre Alechinsky in 1949.

Hugo Claus collaborated with key figures in the movement including Karel Appel and Corneille and participated in some exhibitions.

Hugo Claus later used his experiences of this time in his book Een zachte vernieling.

Hugo Claus suffered from Alzheimer's disease and requested his life to be terminated through euthanasia, a legal procedure in Belgium, at the Middelheim Hospital in Antwerp on 19 March 2008.

Hugo Claus wrote over a thousand pages of poetry, more than sixty plays, over twenty novels and several essays, film scripts, libretti and translations.