Maurice Gilliams
Encyclopedia
Maurice, Baron Gilliams was a Flemish
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 writer and poet. He was the son of printer Frans Gilliams, and he learned to be a typographer
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...

. On 27 August 1935, he married Gabriëlle Baelemans, but they separated soon thereafter, although a divorce would not take place until 1976 due to the resistance of Gabriëlle. On 26 April 1976 he married Maria Eliza Antonia de Raeymaekers.

He worked for the company of his father and he lectured on typography at the Vakschool voor Kunstambachten of Roger Avermaete
Roger Avermaete
Roger Avermaete was a Belgian writer who wrote in Dutch and French.In 1968, he was part of the cross-arts team which created the Christophe Plantin Prize.-Sources:*...

 in Antwerp. In 1947, ha became a member of the Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde of which he became director in 1954. In September 1955, he started working as scientific librarian of the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp. From 1960 until 1975, he was secreatry of the Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Taal- en Letterkunde 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...

.

His breakthrough as writer came with his autobiographical novel Elias of het gevecht met de nachtegalen (E: Elias or the fighting with the nightingales) at the age of 35.

Maurice Gilliams always wrote autobiographical, generally concerning his failed marriage and his lost youth. He wrote both to poems and prose. After his death the Maurice Gilliamsprijs was established. In the garden of the Elzenveld in Antwerp stands a statue of him by Rik Poot.

Awards

  • 1969 - Constantijn Huygensprijs
    Constantijn Huygens Prize
    The Constantijn Huygens Prize is a Dutch literary award.-History:Since 1947, it has been awarded each year for an author's complete works by the Jan Campert Foundation , a foundation named in honor of the Dutch writer Jan Campert who died while helping Jews during WWII...

     for his entire oeuvre
  • 1972 - Driejaarlijkse Staatsprijs for his career as a writer
  • 1980 - Doctor honoris causa at the University of Ghent
  • 1980 - Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren
    Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren
    The Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren is awarded every three years to an author from the Netherlands, Belgium or, since 2005, Suriname writing in Dutch...


Source

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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