Stijn Streuvels, born Frank Lateur in Kortrijk in 1871 and died in Anzegem in 1969, was a Flemish writer from Belgium who wrote in Dutch. His work matters for understanding early twentieth-century literature in Flemish, when writers in Dutch sought their own voice beside the dominant French culture of Belgium.
Until 1905 he worked as a baker in Avelghem, a village near his hometown. His first pieces appeared in a small magazine, but the interest of the editors of Van Nu en Straks and the advice of Emmanuel de Bom, who urged him to publish in book form, launched his career. That same year he married Alida Staelens, and they had four children.
His writing centres almost entirely on the rural life of poor farmers in Flanders. His prose, both epic and lyrical, describes landscapes, fieldwork and rural communities with a close and unidealised eye.
He came close to the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1937 and 1938, but the award went to others. His house became a museum in 1980, and several universities gave him honorary doctorates. His legacy lives on mainly in Flemish literature and in its portrait of the countryside.
Key works
- Lenteleven (1899): early stories that show the tone of his view of the Flemish countryside.
- Langs de wegen (1902): a book about rural roads and people, which the author himself held dearest.
- De vlaschaard (1907): a work about flax growing and the lives of those who worked it, known in English as The Flax Field.
- De teleurgang van den Waterhoek (1927): a portrait of the decline of a farming community, later filmed as Mira.
Curiosities
A baker turned writer
Until 1905 he worked as a baker in Avelghem, and that trade shaped his early years before he devoted himself fully to writing.
Nobel candidate
In 1937 and 1938 he won the majority of votes from the Nobel committee, but the prize went to Roger Martin du Gard in 1937 and to Pearl Buck in 1938.
Original Filopedia text based on Wikipedia (es) and Wikipedia (en) and Wikidata.