The directory «Plots»

Elsschot Willem
(1882—1960)

Willem Elsschot was a Flemish writer and poet (pseudonym of Alfons-Jozef De Ridder). A few of his works have been translated into English.

Alfons-Jozef was born in Antwerp to a baker's family. During secondary school, he developed a love for literature. He was quite restless, having various types of jobs in cities from Antwerp and Brussels to Rotterdam and Paris. During the First World War, he served as the secretary of a national food relief committee in Antwerp. After the war he started his own advertising agency, which he ran until his death.

Willem Elsschot died in Antwerp in 1960, receiving a national literary award posthumously. he is interred in the Antwerpen Schoonselhof.

Elsschot published poems in a magazine titled "Alvoorder". His writing took off while he worked in Rotterdam, where he wrote Villa des Roses (1913). His most famous work came in the 1920s and 1930s: Lijmen (1924), Kaas (1933), Tsjip (1934) en Het Been (1938).

Central themes in his work are business and family life. His >Antwerp during the 1930's. His characters Boorman an entrepreneur on one side (always looking for scams and opportunities like in the book Kaas "Cheese",) and Frank Laarmans, a clerk, evolve through these books until Laarmans (in the very poetical, pensioen "pension"), in his later days finds himself going home. Retired. And goes out for the very last time before ending,very cynically, but satisfied... home.

Some lines of his poem Het Huwelijk/The Marriage (1933) are among the most cited poetry in the Dutch language.

Belgium, 2001, Willem Elsschot

Belgium, 2009, Monument to Willem Elsschot