Herman Brusselmans, born in 1957, is one of the most scandalous Belgian writers to ever exist —if the amount of lawsuits for defamation he has accumulated over the years is anything to go by, of course.
A mildly successful soccer player in his youth, and a columnist, poet, novelist, and playwright for the rest of his life. His writing has an important autobiographical component as it tends to revolve around four Central Themes: cigarettes, alcohol, boredom, and sex.
He has an Instagram profile
where he posts random photographs of his daily life and some literature critique.
Not to be confused with the also Belgian artist Jean Brusselmans.
Works by Herman Brusselmans:
- Are There Canals in Aalst?, a novel
- Autobiography of Someone Else, a novel
- Beautiful Eyes, a novel
- The Canadian Wall, a play
- Ex Drummer, a novel with a Live-Action Adaptation
- The man who found a job, a novel
- The Pretty Puking Girl, an anthology of short stories
- Senseless Sailing, an anthology of short stories
Tropes found across Herman Brusselmans' works:
- Banned in China: Brusselmans is a writer who regularly pokes fun at Flemish celebrities in a degrading and largely inaccurate manner. He sparked controversy when one of his victims, fashion designer Ann Demeulemeester, convinced a court to ban his novel Guggenheimer Wast Witter in 1999. Belgians were outraged at what they saw as preventive censorship with no chance for the author to really defend himself; they circumvented the ban by importing the book from the Netherlands. In 2011, former Belgian Prime Minister and then-EU governor Herman van Rompuy introduced an EU-wide law preventing this sort of judicial order, which led to the ban being overturned.
- "How I Wrote This Article" Article: Brusselmans uses this trope on occasion, often as an introduction. The first sentence of De kus in de nacht (The kiss in the night) is as follows: "As usual I have nothing to say and I will do so for about 600 to 650 pages, we'll see."
- Smoking Is Not Cool: Brusselmans has long hair, a nihilistic approach to life, and a chain-smoking habit.
