Trivia

He became a baron due to the many succesful books he wrote.

He went to highschool at the Klein seminarie in Hoogstraten, and later in Asse. His Flemish awareness was in these days encouraged by the priest and poet Jan Hammenecker. In Leuven, he entered the school for priests of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, but did not finish to be ordained as a priest.

He became widely known with his novel Adelaide, which appeared in 1929, and which was the first of a series of novels. Although initially well-received, the book caused him the rancour of the clergy, and his books were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. This adverse reaction, which was not intended by Walschap, hurt him and after a long inner struggle and doubt he abandoned his faith and became a secular humanist.

In 1925, he married Marie-Antoinette Theunissen (1901-1979) in Maaseik, and a year later their son, Hugo is born. Poet Alice Nahon acts as a nurse and write a poem to the occasion: Aan Hugo's fijne stemmeke (E: To Hugo's fine voice). Hugo Walschap became ambassador of the king of Belgium.

In his book Oproer in Kongo (E: Revolt in Congo) from 1953, he wrote about colonialism, which he conceived after a long journey through Belgian Congo in 1951.

In 1923, he became secretary at the weekly magazine Het Vlaamsche land (E: Flemish country).

As a writer he started his literary career with romantic poetry and Catholicism inspired theatre plays.

As a writer he reveals his own inner self in Het gastmaal (1966) en Het avondmaal (E: Dinner) (1968), by using a modernistic writing style.

Flemish writer Tom Lanoye (1958) had resounding success with Celibaat, a play based on the novel with the same title by Gerard Walschap. Lanoye sees Walschap's book as a metaphor for Flanders, and the Dutch and Flemish response to Theater Teater's production has proved him right in his belief that Walschap's work is still valid and applicable today.

Walschap became the Godfather of a generation of writers opposing the Catholic Church, such as Louis Paul Boon, Marnix Gijsen and Hugo Claus.

In 1935, he narrowly escapes death, as he becomes a victim of carbon monoxide poisoning in the bathroom, but he is saved by his wife.

He received several literary prizes, among which in 1968, the Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren,.

His inner struggle (with faith), would remain of significant importance in his literary work.

His style is concise and tight and he himself explicitly characterized it as the counterpart to the styles of Timmermans and Streuvels.

In his work he also glorifies the extremes of society, such as the primitive life in Volk (E: people) and De dood in het dorp (E: Death in the village) (1930), and the almost aggressive freedom in Het kind (E: The child) (1939) and De consul (1943) and the expression of worriless freedom in probably his most famous work Houtekiet (1939).

His novel Zwart en wit (E: black and white) of 1948, deals with the collaboration (Nazi-Collaborators were called blacks in Belgium, and resistance fighters whites) with Nazism and the repression after World War II.

He wrote about his struggle against the injustice done to him by the Church in Farewell then (1940) and later in Salut en merci (1955).

In the second half of the 1960s, Walschap's literary authority weakened through his fierce criticism of innovative trends in Western European literature.

When his book "Adelaïde" was published in 1929, Walschap expected all the praise from the-primarily Catholic-Flemish press. To be on the safe side, he had given the manuscript to a priest friend to read beforehand, who had reassured him. To his great surprise, he was hounded by all of Catholic Flanders; he was called an apostate, denounced as a pornographer, and censored-the General Secretariat of the Catholic Book Trade (ASKB) controlled more than 80% of libraries-which cost him his livelihood. His books were placed on the infamous index.

Walschap was president of the Royal Flemish Academy of Language and Literature (he resigned from the Academy in 1970 to make way for the younger generation) and was elected an honorary member of the Academy and of the Society of Dutch Literature in Leiden.

In addition to novels, he also wrote essays, theatre and puppet texts and children's books.

In 1943 he laid down new standards for the art of the novel in the essay 'Voorpostgevechten'.

Walschap was anything but satisfied with the publication of his first book, 'Waldo'. "I wrote it in installments, out of a shortage of copy," he said, "and I published it out of a shortage of money.".

In 1970 and 1972 he was nominated as a candidate for the Nobel Prize by the Academy of the Society of Dutch Literature.

At the time of his death, Walschap was the most acclaimed author in Flanders: he had received the triennial state prize for the novel twice, for Trouwen and Zuster Virgilia; the triennial prize for the colonial novel for Oproer in Congo (1953); the five-yearly prize to mark an entire career, after his retirement in 1965; and finally, the Prize for Dutch Literature from the hands of the Dutch Queen in 1968.

After the writer's death in 1989, Hendrik Seghers - who also lived in Londerzeel and who had previously campaigned for the writer's rehabilitation - established, together with the municipality of Londerzeel, the Seghers Literature Prize Gerard Walschap-Londerzeel in his memory.

The author's clash with Catholic morality marked the beginning of a long-lasting struggle, but one that would be won in Walschap's favor: he gave Flanders a substantively new novel, in a fresh, businesslike style, authentic and socially engaged, with people of flesh and blood and emotions, in the reality of their daily lives, free from the constraints of an oppressive faith and an inhuman church.

Walschap's work has been translated into ten languages. In a co-production between AVRO and BRT, director John van de Rest filmed "Een mens van goede wil" (A Man of Good Will) in 1974, and Jef Rademakers made a television portrait of Walschap in 1986.

During a holiday on the Belgian coast in Wenduine in the summer of 1928, he began writing what he believed would become a novella based on the new insights. But, he himself recalled, "I couldn't stop, I just wrote and wrote. And when it was finished, I had written Adelaide." However, Waldo appeared as his first novel in 1928.

Walschap always remained with his wife, although in 1959 he had a platonic friendship for four months with a Brussels admirer who was a lawyer. They corresponded intensively, and Walschap secretly visited her. His wife even hired a private detective. However, Walschap broke off the relationship himself.

His book 'De heilige Jan Mus', is certainly not his best novel, but it is his testament in which he exposes himself and all his convictions.

Walschap always carried with him in the background the thought of suicide. He harbored great despair in life. This had to do with his loss of faith, of course, but mostly with existential despair.

In 1925, Walschap married Marie-Antoinette "Ninette" Theunissen, with whom he had four sons and a daughter. He called his marriage a youthful mistake.

Gerard Walschap always felt very lonely and intellectually isolated. It's well known that he struggled after leaving the monastery and resigning from the Catholic Church. Later, he also didn't feel truly accepted by the liberal establishment. Especially in the 1930s, articles in the magazine "Hooger Leven" reveal how preoccupied he was with suicide and suicides. He didn't actually attempt suicide, but the despair of leaving the monastery and the guilt over his high sexual libido haunted him. A certain despondency was a constant in Walschap's life. That's why he always longed for moments of liberation. Walschap was... a very complex personality.

In Maarschalk Gérardstraat in Antwerp stands a statue of Gerard Walschap. This sculpture was created by Wilfried Pas (1940-2017). Like Walschap, this sculptor was born in Londerzeel. The writer and the sculptor had something else in common: both settled in Antwerp and built their careers there.