Born in Bruges in 1929, Claus joined the Dutch Cobra group and founded the influential periodical Tijd en Mens (Time and Man) with the critic Jan Walravens and novelist Louis-Paul Boon. In 1955, he published De Oostakkerse Gedichten (The Oostakker Poems), which represent a high point in postwar Flemish poetry. The poems vividly draw sexual tensions against the landscape of Flanders in a primitive, almost crude animal fashion.
A versatile and prolific writer, Claus’s published work consists of poetry, novels, short stories, numerous plays, film scenarios, and translations, including Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood. One of his most important novels, Het Verdriet van Belgie of 1983 (translated as The Sorrow of Belgium in 1990), concerns a ten-year-old boy growing up in anti-Semitic West Flanders. Family and friends join Hitler’s Flemish brigades and the National Socialist Youth Movement, becoming workers in the German factories. The boy’s mother is mistress and secretary to a Nazi officer, and his father produces Nazi propaganda. Against these offences, the young boy must grow up to seek a moral and poetic awakening. Among his other novels are Een Zachte Vernieling (A Gentle Destruction), Gilles en de nacht (Gilles in the Night), Belladonna: Scenes uit het leven in de provincie (Belladonna: Scenes from Provincial Life), De Geruchten (Rumors), and Het Verlangen (Desire). His collected poems are gathered in two volumes, Gedichten 1948-1993 (1994) and Gedichten 1969-1978 (2004). He has received the Triennial Belgian State Prize three times, twice for drama and once for poetry. In 1986 he won the State Prize for Dutch Letters, and in 1986 the Leo J. Krijn prize.
BOOKS OF POETRY:
Kleine Reeks (1947); Registreren (1948); Zonder vorm van process (1950); Tancredo infrasonic (1952); Een huis dat tussen nacht en morgen staat (Antwerpen/’s-Gravenhage, De Sikken/Daamen NV,1953); De Oostakkersegedicthen (1955); Paal in perk (1955); Een geverfde ruiter (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1961); Oog om oog (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1964); Gedichten 1948-1963 (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1965); Het Everzwijn (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1970); Van horen zeggen (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1970); Dag, jij (1971); Figuratief (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1973); Het Jansenisme (1976); Het Graf van Pernath (1978); De Wangebeden (1978); Gedichten 1969-1978)(1979); Claustrum: 222 Knittelverzen (Antwerp: Pink Editions and Productions, 1980); (Almanak: 366 Knittelverzen (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1982); Alibi (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1985); Mijn honderd gedichten (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1986); Sonnetten (1988); De Sporen (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1993); Gedichten 1948-1993 (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1994); Gedichten 1969-1978 (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2004)
ENGLISH LANGUAGE TRANSLATIONS:
Selected Poems 1953-1973 (Isle of Skye, Scotland: Aquila Poetry, 1986)
