Franz Hellens


Franz Hellens, born Frédéric van Ermengem was a prolific Belgian novelist, poet and critic. Although of Flemish descent, he wrote entirely in French, and lived in Paris from 1947 to 1971. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.
He is known as one of the major figures in Belgian magic realism, and as the indefatigable editor of Signaux de France et de Belgique. The only work translated into English is Mémoires d'Elseneur.
His father, Émile van Ermengem, was the bacteriologist who discovered the cause of botulism. His younger brother was the writer François Maret.

Life

His father was a bacteriologist, and when in 1886 he was appointed professor at the University of Ghent the Van Ermengem family moved from Brussels to Wetteren, and then to Ghent in 1894. After an abortive attempt to publish a collection of sonnets, Frédéric began studying law at the same university in 1900, but after earning his degree he gave up the idea of a legal career in order to continue writing, moving to Ixelles and taking employment as a librarian in 1906. His first book was the novel En ville morte. In 1907 he married Marguerite Nyst against the will of his parents; they had one daughter, Claire. He published two collections of short stories, Hors-le-vent and Clartés latentes.
At the outbreak of war, Hellens was ineligible for service. He spent some months in England before travelling to the Côte d'Azur, where he met many famous artists and writers, and fell in love with a married Russian named Maria Marcovna Miloslawski. He returned with her to Brussels in 1920, the same year he published Mélusine, and married her on 20 July 1925, having divorced Marguerite in 1919. They had one daughter, Marie-Elisabeth, and two sons, Alexandre and Serge.
On 1 May 1921 Hellens and André Salmon founded the Signaux de France et de Belgique, a magazine which had great influence on Belgian literary life. He made trips to Italy in 1925 and 1926 and to Norway in 1936. His father died in 1932, an event which prompted him to begin writing his voluminous diaries. In 1937 he signed the famous Manifeste du lundi of Charles Plisnier, a denunciation of regionalism.
His eldest son died in fighting near Rouen; nevertheless he continued to publish work throughout the war. Maria died on 5 October 1947. He married Hélène Burbulis on 26 November and moved to Paris, where he stayed until her death in 1971. He reestablished Le Disque vert with René de Soher in 1951, and compiled a collected volume of his poetry in 1959. Professing himself dissatisfied with all his work, he continued to write throughout his old age.
In an interview from August 1970, Vladimir Nabokov said:

Selected works

En ville morte, 1906Les hors-le-vent, 1909Les clartés latentes. Vingt contes et paraboles, 1912Nocturnal, preceded by Quinze histoires, 1919Mélusine, 1920, 1952La femme au prisme, 1920Bass-Bassina-Boulou, 1922Réalités fantastiques, 1923Notes prises d'une lucarne, 1925Oeil-de-Dieu, 1925, 1959Le naïf, Paris, 1926Eclairages, 1916–1923, 1926L'Enfant et l'écuyère, 1927Le jeune homme Annibal, 1929, 1961La femme partagée, 1929Les filles du désir, 1930Documents secrets, 1905–1931, 1932Poésie de la veille et du lendemain 1917–1927, 1932Fraîcheur de la mer, 1933Frédéric, 1935Le magasin aux poudres, 1936Nouvelles réalités fantastiques, 1943Moralités peu salutaires, 1943Fantômes vivants, 1944La vie seconde, 1945, 1963Moreldieu, 1946, 1960Naître et mourir, 1948Miroirs conjugués, 1950Pourriture noble, 1951Testament, 1951L'homme de soixante ans, 1951Les marées de l'Escaut, 1953Mémoires d'Elseneur, 1954. English translation by Howard Curtis.. Memories of Elsinore. New York: Peter LangStyle et caractère, 1956Les saisons de Pontoise, 1956Dans l'automne de mon grand âge, 1956Documents secrets 1905-1956, 1958Poésie complète, 1905–1959, 1959Petit théâtre aux chandelles, 1960L'âge dur, 1957–1960, 1961Valeurs sûres, 1962Herbes méchantes, 1964La comédie des portraits, 1965Poétique des éléments et des mythes, 1966Le dernier jour du monde, 1967Le fantastique réel, 1967Arrière-saisons, 1960–1967, 1967Paroles sans musique, 1969Cet âge qu'on dit grand, essay, 1970

Awards