The Most Famous

WRITERS from Belgium

This page contains a list of the greatest Belgian Writers. The pantheon dataset contains 7,302 Writers, 47 of which were born in Belgium. This makes Belgium the birth place of the 26th most number of Writers behind Netherlands, and Switzerland.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Belgian Writers of all time. This list of famous Belgian Writers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Belgian Writers.

1. Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 - 1949)

With an HPI of 76.70, Maurice Maeterlinck is the most famous Belgian Writer. His biography has been translated into 92 different languages on wikipedia.

Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count/Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911 "in appreciation of his many-sided literary activities, and especially of his dramatic works, which are distinguished by a wealth of imagination and by a poetic fancy, which reveals, sometimes in the guise of a fairy tale, a deep inspiration, while in a mysterious way they appeal to the readers' own feelings and stimulate their imaginations". The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life. He was a leading member of La Jeune Belgique group, and his plays form an important part of the Symbolist movement. In later life, Maeterlinck faced credible accusations of plagiarism.

2. Georges Simenon (1903 - 1989)

With an HPI of 73.83, Georges Simenon is the 2nd most famous Belgian Writer. His biography has been translated into 73 different languages.

Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (French: [ʒɔʁʒ simnɔ̃]; 12/13 February 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a Belgian writer, most famous for his fictional detective Jules Maigret. One of the most popular authors of the 20th century, he published around 400 novels (including 192 under his own name), 21 volumes of memoirs and many short stories, selling over 500 million copies. Apart from his detective fiction, he achieved critical acclaim for his literary novels which he called romans durs (hard novels). Among his literary admirers were Max Jacob, François Mauriac and André Gide. Gide wrote, “I consider Simenon a great novelist, perhaps the greatest, and the most genuine novelist that we have had in contemporary French literature.” Born and raised in Liège, Belgium, Simenon lived for extended periods in France (1922–1945), the United States (1946–1955) and finally Switzerland (1957–1989). Much of his work is semi-autobiographical, inspired by his childhood and youth in Liège, extensive travels in Europe and the world, wartime experiences, troubled marriages, and numerous love affairs. Critics such as John Banville have praised Simenon's novels for their psychological insights and vivid evocation of time and place. Among his most notable works are The Saint-Fiacre Affair (1932), Monsieur Hire's Engagement (1933), Act of Passion (1947), The Snow was Dirty (1948) and The Cat (1967).

3. Marguerite Yourcenar (1903 - 1987)

With an HPI of 69.33, Marguerite Yourcenar is the 3rd most famous Belgian Writer. Her biography has been translated into 69 different languages.

Marguerite Yourcenar (UK: , US: ; French: [maʁɡ(ə)ʁit juʁsənaʁ] ; born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour; 8 June 1903 – 17 December 1987) was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist who became a US citizen in 1947. Winner of the Prix Femina and the Erasmus Prize, she was the first woman elected to the Académie Française, in 1980. In 1965, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

4. Julio Cortázar (1914 - 1984)

With an HPI of 68.73, Julio Cortázar is the 4th most famous Belgian Writer. His biography has been translated into 68 different languages.

Julio Florencio Cortázar (26 August 1914 – 12 February 1984; Latin American Spanish: [ˈxuljo koɾˈtasaɾ] ) was an Argentine and naturalised French novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, and translator. Known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced an entire generation of Spanish-speaking readers and writers in America and Europe. He is considered to be one of the most innovative and original authors of his time, a master of history, poetic prose, and short stories as well as the author of many groundbreaking novels, a prolific author who inaugurated a new way of making literature in the Hispanic world by breaking classical molds. He is perhaps best known as the author of multiple narratives that attempt to defy the temporal linearity of traditional literature. Cortázar lived his childhood, adolescence, and incipient maturity in Argentina. In 1951, he settled in France for what would prove to be more than three decades. However, he also lived in Italy, Spain, and Switzerland.

5. Émile Verhaeren (1855 - 1916)

With an HPI of 65.37, Émile Verhaeren is the 5th most famous Belgian Writer. His biography has been translated into 47 different languages.

Émile Adolphe Gustave Verhaeren (Dutch: [eːˈmilə vərˈɦaːrə(n)]; 21 May 1855 – 27 November 1916) was a Belgian poet and art critic who wrote in the French language. He was one of the founders of the school of Symbolism and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on six occasions.

6. Marguerite Porete (1250 - 1310)

With an HPI of 61.52, Marguerite Porete is the 6th most famous Belgian Writer. Her biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Marguerite Porete (French: [maʁɡ(ə)ʁit pɔʁɛt]; 13th century – 1 June 1310) was a Beguine, a French-speaking mystic and the author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, a work of Christian mysticism dealing with the workings of agape (divine love). She was burnt at the stake for heresy in Paris in 1310 after a lengthy trial for refusing to remove her book from circulation or to recant her views. Today, Porete's work has been of interest to a diverse number of scholars. Those interested in medieval mysticism, more specifically Beguine mystical writing, cite The Mirror of Simple Souls in their studies. The book is also seen as a primary text regarding the medieval Heresy of the Free Spirit. Study of Eckhart has shown a similarity between his and Porete's ideas about union with God. Porete has also been of interest to those studying medieval women's writing.

7. Pierre Louÿs (1870 - 1925)

With an HPI of 61.02, Pierre Louÿs is the 7th most famous Belgian Writer. His biography has been translated into 32 different languages.

Pierre-Félix Louÿs (French: [pjɛʁ lu.is]; 10 December 1870 – 4 June 1925) was a Belgian poet and writer, most renowned for lesbian and classical themes in some of his writings. He is known as a writer who sought to "express pagan sensuality with stylistic perfection". He was made first a Chevalier and then an Officer of the Légion d'honneur for his contributions to French literature.

8. Henri Michaux (1899 - 1984)

With an HPI of 60.90, Henri Michaux is the 8th most famous Belgian Writer. His biography has been translated into 33 different languages.

Henri Michaux (French: [ɑ̃ʁi miʃo]; 24 May 1899, Namur – 19 October 1984, Paris) was a Belgian-born French poet, writer and painter. Michaux is renowned for his strange, highly original poetry and prose, and also for his art: the Paris Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York had major shows of his work in 1978 (see below, Visual Arts). His autobiographical texts that chronicle his psychedelic experiments with LSD and mescaline include Miserable Miracle and The Major Ordeals of the Mind and the Countless Minor Ones. He is recognised for his idiosyncratic travelogues and books of art criticism. Michaux is also known for his stories about Plume – "a peaceable man" – perhaps the most unenterprising hero in the history of literature, a character subject to many misfortunes. His poetic works have often been republished in France, where they are studied along with major poets of French literature. In 1955 he became a citizen of France, and he lived the rest of his life there. He became a friend of Romanian pessimist philosopher Emil Cioran around the same time, along with other literary luminaries in France. In 1965 he won the grand prix national des Lettres, which he refused to accept, as he did every honor he was accorded in his life. Japanese animator Ryo Orikasa adapted Michaux's poetry for the 2023 short film Miserable Miracle, winner of the top animated short prize at the Ottawa International Animation Festival.

9. Laura Marx (1845 - 1911)

With an HPI of 60.49, Laura Marx is the 9th most famous Belgian Writer. Her biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

Jenny Laura Marx (26 September 1845 – 25 November 1911) was a socialist activist. The second daughter of Karl Marx and Jenny von Westphalen, she married revolutionary writer Paul Lafargue in 1868. The two committed suicide together in 1911.

10. Victor Serge (1890 - 1947)

With an HPI of 59.85, Victor Serge is the 10th most famous Belgian Writer. His biography has been translated into 28 different languages.

Victor Serge (French: [viktɔʁ sɛʁʒ]; December 30, 1890 – November 17, 1947), born Victor Lvovich Kibalchich (Russian: Ви́ктор Льво́вич Киба́льчич), was a Russian writer, poet, Marxist revolutionary and historian. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks five months after arriving in Petrograd in January 1919 and later worked for the Comintern as a journalist, editor and translator. He was critical of the Stalinist regime and remained a revolutionary Marxist until his death. He was a close supporter of the Left Opposition and associate of Leon Trotsky. According to William Giraldi, Serge's novels may be "read like an alloy of" George Orwell and Franz Kafka: "the uncommon political acuity of Orwell and the absurdist comedy of Kafka, a comedy with the damning squint of satire, except the satire is real." In his studies of Serge, Richard Greeman described him as a Modernist writer influenced by James Joyce, Andrei Bely and Freud; Greeman also believed that Serge, although writing in French, continued the experiments of such Russian Soviet writers as Isaac Babel, Osip Mandelstam and Boris Pilnyak and poets Vladimir Mayakovsky and Sergei Yesenin. He is remembered as the author of novels and other prose works, memoirs (e.g. Memoirs of a Revolutionary) and poetry. Among his novels chronicling the lives of Soviet people and revolutionaries and of the first half of the 20th century, the best-known is The Case of Comrade Tulayev (French: L'affaire Toulaev). Nicholas Lezard calls the novel " of the great 20th-century Russian novels" that follows the traditions of "Gogolian absurdity".

People

Pantheon has 51 people classified as Belgian writers born between 1150 and 1972. Of these 51, 6 (11.76%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Belgian writers include Amélie Nothomb, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, and Axel Merckx. The most famous deceased Belgian writers include Maurice Maeterlinck, Georges Simenon, and Marguerite Yourcenar. As of April 2024, 3 new Belgian writers have been added to Pantheon including Jan Gruter, Maurice Carême, and Roger Foulon.