 First edition (Dutch) | |
| Author | Hugo Claus |
|---|---|
| Original title | Het Verdriet van België |
| Translator | Arnold J. Pomerans |
| Cover artist | James Ensor's Music in the Vlaanderenstraat (1891) |
| Language | Dutch |
| Publisher | De Bezige Bij |
Publication date | 1983 |
| Publication place | Belgium |
Published in English | 1994 |
| ISBN | 978-0-14-018801-1 |
The Sorrow of Belgium (Dutch: Het verdriet van België) is a 1983 novel by the Belgian author Hugo Claus (1929–2008). The book, widely considered Claus's most important work and "the most important Dutch-language novel of the twentieth century",[1] is a Bildungsroman which explores themes around politics and growing up in Flanders around World War II. It has been described as "one of the great novels of postwar Europe".[2]
The Sorrow of Belgium explores the childhood and youth of Louis Seynaeve, a Flemish schoolboy living in the region of Kortrijk during World War II when Belgium was under German occupation.[3] The novel itself is a Bildungsroman and Künstlerroman,[4] formed from two sections:
- "The Sorrow" (Het verdriet); 27 numbered chapters with titles
- "of Belgium" (van België); text not divided in chapters.
The work was first published in an English translation by Arnold J. Pomerans in 1994. It was also made into a mini-series the same year.[5]
- ^ ""Het verdriet van België", Hugo Claus (1983)". Literatuurgeschiedenis.nl. Retrieved 14 October 2018.
- ^ Coetzee, J.M. (24 February 2007). "Stepping Stones". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Graa Boomsma 1986was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Bram Mertens, and Sarah Davison. “A Portrait of Hugo Claus as a Young Artist: The Influence of James Joyce on The Sorrow of Belgium.” The Modern Language Review 112, no. 2 (2017): 413–39. doi:10.5699/modelangrevi.112.2.0413.
- ^ "Films - VPRO Cinema".