Trivia

His widow told that he was a man of the night ." You could one or maybe two evenings take him off of that schedule, but the third night there was no possibility stopping him: he had to write. ".

His quadrilingual 'Filmografisch lexicon der wereldliteratuur' (3 volumes, 1971, 1973 and 1978) developed from his association with the Knokke film festival.

Almost all of his novels were translated into many European languages.

Herman Thiery began writing under the pen-name Johan Daisne in 1935, with the publication of a collection of poetry entitled 'Verzen'.

Together with Hubert Lampo, he was one of the pioneers of magic realism in the Dutch language.

Beside novels he also wrote screenplays, radio plays and non-fiction.

Born in Ghent, Belgium, he attended the Koninklijk Atheneum before studying Economics and Slavic languages at Ghent University, receiving his doctorate in 1936.

Daisne is considered one of the most valuable writers in Flanders.

Two of his novels (The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short) and ('One Night... a Train) -with Yves Montand- were directed by André Delvaux.

In 1945 he was appointed chief librarian of the city of Ghent.

His father came from an old French noble family from the Aisne Department, hence his pseudonym d'Aisne or Daisne.

In 1960, he was awarded with the Belgian State Prize for literature.

When his father died in 1951, Johan Daisne became depressed and fell ill. His novel "The Prince of Lebanon" was a father's novel, but he did not want to publish it because the grief was still too great.

Johan Daisne was cremated in silence. His ashes were scattered. Johan Daisne's name was placed on his father's grave (Westerbegraafplaats Ghent, grave 4287).

He is the author of a considerable body of work: nine novels, sixty stories and short stories, several plays, twenty collections of poetry, twenty works devoted to cinema and around twenty other publications including reports, essays, a study on French writer Pierre Benoit and a history of Russian literature .