Hugo Claus

Hugo Claus was born on April 5, 1929 in Brugge, West Flanders, Belgium as Hugo Maurice Julien Claus.

He 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 (born in 1928) acted in a few films. They were married on 26 May 1955, and had a son, Thomas, on 7 October 1963.

A sympathizer of the political left at a more mature period in his life, Claus lauded the socialist model after a visit to Cuba in the 1960s.

Hugo Claus was considered to be one of the most important contemporary Belgian authors. The 1962 De verwondering (The Astonishment) and the 1983 Het verdriet van België (The Sorrow of Belgium) rank among Claus' most significant works as a novelist.

Has two sons; Thomas Pieter Achilles Claus (b. 1963) from his marriage with Elly Claus, and Arthur Kristel (b. 1975) from his relationship with Sylvia Kristel.

Claus directed seven films between 1964 and 2001. His film Het sacrament was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.

Claus also wrote the script of a satirical comic strip, "De Avonturen van Belgman" ("The Adventures of Belgian Man") in 1967, which spoofed the Belgian bi-lingual troubles. The strip itself was drawn by artist Hugoké (Hugo de Kempeneer).

In the early 1970s, he had an affair with actress Sylvia Kristel, who was 23 years younger, with whom he had a son, Arthur, in 1975. They lived in Amsterdam. The relationship ended in 1977, when she left him for actor Ian McShane.

Claus published the novel Schola Nostra (1971) under the pseudonym Dorothea Van Male. He also used the pseudonyms Jan Hyoens and Thea Streiner.

He was a writer and director, known for Vrijdag (1980), De verlossing (2001) and De vijanden (1968). He was married to Veerle de Wit and Elly Claus.

Hugo Claus was educated at a boarding school led by nuns in Aalbeke and experienced the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. The experience was formative, and would later be adapted by Claus into his semi-autobiographical The Sorrow of Belgium (1983).

Claus has received more than fifty prizes, including seven Belgian or Flemish National Awards, several Dutch awards, he also received the Belgian-Dutch Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren (1986), the most important literary prize for a Dutch writing author. International prizes include the Prix Lugné-Poë (1955), the Ford Foundation Grant (1959), the Prix International Pier Paolo Pasolini (1997), the Aristeion Literature Prize (1998), the Premio Nonino (2000) and the Preis für Europäische Poesie (2001).