Johan Daisne was the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 of Flemish author Herman Thiery (2 September 1912–9 August 1978). Born in Ghent

Ghent

Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...

, Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, he attended the Koninklijk Atheneum before studying Economics

Economics

Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

 and Slavic languages

Slavic languages

The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...

 at Ghent University

Ghent University

Ghent University is a Dutch-speaking public university located in Ghent, Belgium. It is one of the larger Flemish universities, consisting of 32,000 students and 7,100 staff members. The current rector is Paul Van Cauwenberge.It was established in 1817 by King William I of the Netherlands...

, receiving his doctorate in 1936. In 1945 he was appointed chief librarian of the city of Ghent.

Thiery began writing under the pen-name Johan Daisne in 1935, with the publication of a collection of poetry entitled Verzen. This was followed by other poetical works including Het einde van een zomer (1940), Ikonakind (1946), Het kruid-aan-de-balk (1953) and De nacht komt gauw genoeg (1961). Together with Hubert Lampo

Hubert Lampo

Hubert Leon Lampo was a Flemish writer, one of the founders of magic realism in Flanders. His most famous book is...

, he was one of the pioneers of magic realism

Magic realism

Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...

 in the Dutch language

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

 writing with his novels, the best known of which are De trap van steen en wolken (1942), De man die zijn haar kort liet knippen (1947) (translated as 'The man who had his hair cut short', 1965), and De trein der traagheid (1953).

He also wrote screenplays, radio plays and non-fiction. His quadrilingual Filmografisch lexicon der wereldliteratuur (3 volumes, 1971, 1973 and 1978) developed from his association with the Knokke

Knokke

Knokke is one of a group of communities that are all grouped in the administrative community Knokke-Heist, in the province of West Flanders in Flanders, Belgium. Knokke itself has 15,653 inhabitants .Knokke-Heist has 33,818 inhabitants ....

film festival.

Translations into English

• The Man Who Cut His Hair Short (1965)
• Filmographic Dictionary of World Literature (1971) ISBN 0391015850
• Writing in Holland and Flanders 31 (1972) (by Johan Daisne and Jacques Hamelink)

External links

Studiecentrum Johan Daisne