Jozef Adriaan Anna Geeraerts (23 February 1930 – 11 May 2015), better known as Jef Geeraerts, was a Belgian writer. Geeraerts was born in Antwerp. After his studies in political and administrative sciences at the

Colonial University of Belgium The Colonial University of Belgium ( nl, Koloniale Hogeschool van België) was a Belgian institute of higher education, located in Antwerp. Founded in 1920 and discontinued in 1961, the institute prepared students for a life in the Belgian Congo ...

in Antwerp he became a colonial administrator in

Belgian Congo The Belgian Congo (french: Congo belge, ; nl, Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960. The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964. Colo ...

. On the independence of the Congo he sent his wife and children back to

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

and in August 1960 he himself returned to Belgium. During the next six years he was paid by the government (return program). After that time he needed to find a job to survive. He decided to become a writer and went to the University of Brussels to study

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...

Career as a writer

When he had finished his studies he wrote his first novel, ''Ik ben maar een neger'' ("I'm just a negro"), which put him on the map as extremely controversial. The book was based on his experience as military in the Congo. He wrote more of these politically motivated colonial books before he started his ''Gangreen'' series. There are four parts, ''Gangreen 1'' (''Black Venus''), ''Gangreen 2'' (''De Goede Moordenaar''), ''Gangreen 3'' (''Het Teken van de Hond'') and ''Gangreen 4'' (''Het Zevende Zegel''). These books were sexually explicit, which led to controversy in Belgium. His books were considered by some to be racist and pornographic. Geeraerts later became famous for his detective stories. Nowadays, he is a celebrated crime-novelist and several of his books ('' De zaak Alzheimer'' and '' Dossier K'') have been filmed. In total Geeraerts wrote 35 novels, some plays and a

radio drama Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...

. Two of his books were used for a film.

Private life

Geeraerts has three children from his first marriage, among these his daughter Ilse. In 1978, he married Eleonore Vigenon. In the last years of his life he lived in , part of

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded i ...

. He died from a heart attack in

in May 2015.

Awards and recognitions

* 1967 –

Arkprijs van het Vrije Woord The Arkprijs van het Vrije Woord (Ark Prize of the Free Word) is a symbolic award created in 1951 by Herman Teirlinck and the editorial team of the ''Nieuw Vlaams Tijdschrift'' (New Flemish magazine) to counteract ideologically driven restrictions ...

for ''De Troglodieten'' * 1969 - Staatsprijs voor verhalend proza * 1986 - de

Gouden Strop The Gouden Strop (i.e. 'Golden Noose') is the annual award for the best crime novel in the Dutch language. The prize has been awarded since 1986. The winner receives € 10,000 and a statuette. Its Belgian equivalent is the Diamanten Kogel (i.e. ...

for best Dutch crime novel (incomplete list) The town of Antwerp mounted a memory plate on the birth house of Geeraerts. In addition, the town bought his handwritten archive for conservation. The

main-belt asteroid The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

13027 Geeraerts (1989 GJ4) discovered on 3 April 1989 by E. W. Elst at the European Southern Observatory was named after Jef Geeraerts.

References

External links

Jef Geeraerts

Jef Geeraerts on 50 years of Congolese independence - Phara 01/04/2010

Back to Congo with Jef Geeraerts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Geeraerts, Jef Flemish writers Belgian Congo officials Free University of Brussels (1834–1969) alumni 1930 births 2015 deaths Ark Prize of the Free Word winners Belgian male novelists Belgian erotica writers 20th-century Belgian novelists 21st-century Belgian novelists Writers from Antwerp 20th-century Belgian male writers 21st-century Belgian male writers 20th-century Belgian dramatists and playwrights Belgian male dramatists and playwrights

Career as a writer

Private life

Awards and recognitions

See also

References

External links