The Modern Novel

Biography

Pierre Mertens was born in 1939 in Brussels, on the day, according to Mertens, on which Hitler decided to invade Belgium. His father was a journalist and his mother a biologist. The family spent the war in Bordeaux. On returning to Belgium after the War, the young Mertens tried his hand at writing. In his teens, he was involved in sport as well as politics, particularly as a result of Algeria. He attended the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where he studied law. He married and had two children, one born on the day of Kennedy’s assassination. He became interested in the cinema, particularly Godard. He started work as a sociology researcher and produced works on human rights. In 1969 he published his first novel and continued to publish novels and stories, as well as making a film, writing an operetta libretto and publishing works on human rights. In 1979 he became professor of comparative literature at the Institut National des Arts du Spectacle. He later became director Centre de Sociologie de la littérature. In 1986 he spent a year in Berlin and used the experience to write his best-known novel Les éblouissements (Shadowlight), which won many prizes. He has continued to write novels, stories, as well as non-fiction. His 1995 work Une paix royale [A Royal Peace] was very controversial as it attacked the Belgian royal family.

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Pierre Mertens
Pierre Mertens (in French)
Pierre Mertens (in French)
Pierre Mertens (in French)
Pierre Mertens (in French)
Pierre Mertens (in French)