Hugo Claus

He was the eldest of the sons born to Jozef (Joseph) Claus, a printer who had a passion for theater; his mother was Germaine Vanderlinden. Three more sons were born into the family within the subsequent decade: Guido (February 1931 - 9 November 1991), Odo (born January 1934), and Johan (November 1938 - 13 February 2009).

Educated at a boarding school, the young Hugo Claus lived in Flanders during Nazi Germany's invasion of the country in World War II. Several of Claus' schoolteachers during the half-decade of the German occupation of the country were right-wing nationalists eager to support the Nazi government; his father was briefly held in custody for pro-German activities at the end of the occupation, and Hugo was himself swayed into supporting the pro-German Flemish fascist youth movement. Claus' experience with the wartime nationalist right would later become a source for his 1983 book The Sorrow of Belgium, a novel which tells the story of Claus' alter ego Louis Seynaeve. 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. Read Less