Born: Bruges, Belgium, 5 April 1929. Education: Primary education at various boarding schools; abandoned school before completing secondary education. Military service: 1949. Family: Married 1) Elly Overzier 1955, one son; relationship with Kitty Courbois and subsequently with Sylvia Kristel, who bore him a son; 2) Veerle de Wit, 1993. Career: Left home in 1946 to begin life as an independent artist and writer; lived in Paris, 1950-53, and Rome, 1953-55, and participated in the COBRA movement of avant-garde painters; moved to Ghent, 1955-66, and Nukerke, 1966-70, to build a career as a novelist, poet, playwright, painter, film and stage director, and author of film scenarios and opera libretti; incurred a four-month prison sentence (suspended) in 1968 for staging one of his plays featuring three nude men; moved to Amsterdam, 1970, back to Paris and then back to Ghent in 1978. Lives in Antwerp. Awards: In Belgium: Triennial prize for drama, 1955, 1967, 1973 and 1979; Triennial State prize for poetry, 1971; Triennial State prize for fiction, 1984; Triennial Culture prize of the Flemish Community, 1999. Dutch-Flemish awards: Constantijn Huygens prize, 1979; prize of Dutch Letters, 1986; prize of the Society of Dutch Letters, 1995. International awards: Prix Lugne-Poe (France), 1955; Ford Foundation grant (United States), 1959; Grand Prix de l’Humour Noir (France), 1989; Prix International Pier Paolo Pasolini (Italy), 1997; Aristeion prize (European Union), 1998; Premio Nonino (Italy), 2000; Preis fur Europaische Poesie (City of Munster, Germany), 2001.
Publications
Collections
Gedichten. 1965, 1979.
Acht toneelstukken. 1966.
Gedichten 1969-1978. 1979.
Gedichten 1948-1993. 1994.
Toneel I-IV. 1988-93.
Toneel. 1999.
Verhalen. 1999.
Een andere keer: de andere verhalen. 1999.
Selected Poems 1953-1973, edited by Theo Hermans, translated by Theo Hermans, Paul Brown and Peter Nijmeijer. 1986.
Four Works for the Theatre by Hugo Claus, edited by David Willinger, translated by David Willinger, Lucas Truyts and Luc Deneulin. 1990.
Fiction
De Metsiers. 1950; as The Duck Hunt, translated by George Libaire, 1955; as Sister of Earth, translated by George Libaire. 1966. De hondsdagen. 1952.
Natuurgetrouw. 1954.
De koele minnaar. 1956.
De zwarte keizer. 1958.
Het mes. 1961.
De verwondering. 1962.
Omtrent Deedee. 1963.
Natuurgetrouwer. 1969.
Schaamte. 1972.
Het jaar van de kreeft. 1972.
Jessica!. 1977.
Het verlangen. 1978; as Desire, translated by Stacey Knecht. 1997.
De verzoeking. 1981; as The Temptation, translated by David Willinger and Luc Deneulin, 1984, 1990.
Het verdriet van Belgie. 1983; as The Sorrow of Belgium, translated by Arnold Pomerans, 1990.
De mensen hiernaast. 1985.
Een zachte vernieling. 1988.
Gilles en de nacht. 1989.
De zwaardvis. 1989; as The Swordfish, translated by Ruth Levitt,1996.
Belladonna. 1994.
De geruchten. 1996.
Onvoltooid verleden. 1998.
Het laatste bed. 1998.
Een slaapwandeling. 2000.
Plays
Een bruid in de morgen. 1955.
Het lied van de moordenaar. 1957.
Suiker. 1958.
Mama, kijk, zonder handen!. 1959.
De dans van de reiger. 1962.
Vrijdag. 1969; as Friday, translated by Christopher Logue and the author, 1972; by David Willinger and Lucas Truyts, 1986, 1990.
Tand om tand. 1970.
Het leven en de werken van LeopoldII. 1970; as The Life and Works of Leopold II, translated by David Willinger and Lucas Truyts, in An Anthology of Contemporary Belgian Plays, 1984.
Interieur. 1971.
Pas de deux. 1973.
Thuis. 1975; as Back Home, translated by David Willinger and Lucas Truyts, in An Anthology of Contemporary Belgian Plays, 1984.
Het huis van Labdakos. 1977.
Jessica!. 1977.
De verzoeking. 1981.
Het haar van de hond. 1982; as The Hair of the Dog, translated by David Willinger and Lucas Truyts, 1988, 1990.
Serenade. 1984; as Serenade, translated by David Willinger and Lucas Truyts, 1985, 1990.
Gilles!. 1988.
Het schommelpaard. 1988.
Onder de torens. 1993.
De eieren van de kaaiman. 1996.
De verlossing. 1996.
Visite. 1996.
Winteravond. 1996; as Winter Evening, translated by Paul Charters, Katheryn Ronnau Bradbeer and Paul Vincent, in Modern Poetry in Translation (n.s.) 12, 1998.
De komedianten. 1997.
Poetry
Kleine reeks. 1947.
Registreren. 1948.
Zonder vorm van process. 1950.
Tancredo infrasonic. 1952.
Een huis dat tussen nacht en morgen staat. 1953.
Paal en perk. 1955.
De Oostakkerse gedichten. 1955.
Een geverfde ruiter. 1961.
Het teken van de hamster. 1963; as The Sign of the Hamster, translated by Paul Claes, Christine D’haen, Theo Hermans and Yann Lovelock, 1986.
Heer Everzwijn. 1970.
Van horen zeggen. 1970. Dag, jij. 1971.
Figuratief. 1973.
De wangebeden. 1978.
Claustrum. 1980.
Almanak. 1982.
Alibi. 1985.
Sonnetten. 1988.
De sporen. 1993.
Wreed geluk. 1999.
De groeten. 2002.
Critical Studies:
Het geclausuleerde beest by Theo Goovaert, 1962; Hugo Claus, traditie en experiment by Jean Weisgerber, 1970; Over Claus’ tonee by Jacques de Decker, 1971; Hugo Claus of Oedipus in het paradijs by Georges Wildemeersch, 1973; Claus Quadrifrons by Paul Claes, 1978; Over De Verwondering van Hugo Claus by Joris Duytschaever, 1979; Over De hondsdagen van Hugo Claus by G.F.H. Raat, 1980; De pen gaat waar het hart niet kan edited by Gerd de Ley, 1980; De mot zit in de mythe by Paul Claes, 1984; Claus-reading by Paul Claes, 1984; Hugo Claus by Freddy de Vree, 1984; Hugo Claus by Bert Kooijman, 1984; Over Hugo Claus via bestaande modellen, edited by H. Dutting, 1984; Onbewoonbare huizen zijn de woorden by Dirk de Geest, 1989; Het spiegelpaleis van Hugo Claus edited by Daan Cartens and Freddy de Vree, 1991; Dodelijke dikke wolken by Rudi van der Paardt and Freddy Decreus, 1992; Het paard begeerte by Johan Thielemans, 1994; Claus geheimschrift by Dina and Jean Weisgerber, 1995; Het teken van de ram. Jaarboek van de Claus-studie, yearbook from 1995; Hugo Claus—wat bekommert zich de leeuw om de vlooien in zijn vacht? edited by Georges Wildemeersch, 1999; ‘Claus the Chameleon’ by Paul Claes in The Low Countries 1, 1993-94.
Hugo Claus’ literary output, which runs to around 150 titles to date, is daunting for its complexity and diversity as well as for its size. At once the enfant terrible of contemporary Dutch-language writing and its most prized and celebrated author, his work ranges across genres and styles. He varies literary modes and linguistic registers with astonishing ease and alternates between elemental passion and political satire, unabashed naturalism and allusive erudition, Oedipal imagery and grotesque humour. A restless experimental streak runs through his entire oeuvre. His original output is supplemented with a large number of translations and adaptations, especially for the stage—including work by Shakespeare, Cyril Tourneur, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, Dylan Thomas, Noel Coward, Georg Buchner, Federico Garcia Lorca, Seneca, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes and others. He has also rewritten his own prose for the stage and vice versa.
An uncompromising, anarchic zest for life informs much of Claus’ work, but he is not a writer given to pursuing a single theme or form. Indeed the other side of the insistence on the libidinal is Claus’ expert use of allusion and wordplay, often deployed together in dense intertextual webs. His most important work of fiction, the epic novel Het verdriet van Belgie (The Sorrow of Belgium), may be read autobiographically as an account of his own development as a writer. Set in the years before, during, and just after World War II, the book tells the story of a young Flemish boy who observes the chaotic world around him with wilful incomprehension and ironic detachment. Fragmented and kaleidoscopic, tender and carnivalesque, the novel presents a portrait of the artist as a recalcitrant young man but also offers biting social criticism and an engaging period evocation. In the end, however, the protagonist’s decision to go his own stubbornly independent way is existential rather than political.
Although Claus’ work is much too varied to allow the application of a single label to characterize it, it is, on the whole, more concerned with a violent distaste for the constraints imposed by social conventions, family ties, church and state than with any positive ideals. In that sense its hankering after freedom is overshadowed by a pervasive, illusionless pessimism. The dark, brooding secrets of the past which cloud personal and social relationships in many of his novels, stories, and plays appear both as Oedipal drives and as the signs of political and moral corruption. The only redeeming force is a strongly physical, blind love that does not ask questions but takes the here and now for what it is worth.
In all the genres that he practises Claus pushes his portrayal of human nature beyond the limits of conventional realism. As a result, some characters are larger than life and assume mythical proportions, while others turn into grimacing caricatures, primitive brutes or tormented victims. Like Francis Bacon’s—and indeed his own— paintings, Claus’ literary works intrigue and shock because they intensify the human condition to the point where its raw nerves are rendered visible through the distortion.
