Louis Paul Boon

Louis Paul Boon (1912 – 1979) was one of the foremost Flemish writers of the 20^th century. Although the popular image of Boon is that of a reclusive author, working mainly within the private sphere of his family in Aalst and supported by his wife Jeanneke, this is not entirely true. Boon made public appearances on various occasions, certainly from the 1960s onwards. In collaboration with Art Cinema OFFoff, Flemish Review de la Poëzie presents three audiovisual works that shed light on the relationship between Boon and Flemish visual culture.

In 1962, quizmaster Paul Van De Velde invited Boon to join the panel of the television program ​’t Is maar een woord. Boon accepted, and his participation in the humorous game show increased his popularity with the general public, independent of his literary work and his journalism for the daily newspaper Vooruit. This early example of the mediatization of Flemish literature illustrates how the medium of television could create a different public for an author. During the 1960s, however, Boon was not only embraced by a wider popular audience, he was also discovered by a younger generation of artists who saw in him both a precursor and a kindred spirit. For that reason, the leftist Antwerp filmmaker Robbe De Hert (1942 – 2020) casted Boon in his 1969 short film De Bom. A film with a clear anti-nuclear message, it features Boon as a garage owner who finds an atomic bomb lost by the Americans and who plans to use the weapon to force the Belgian state to disarm. An intriguing and energetic short film, it shows that Boon could not only be a popular joker but also a supporter of the young counterculture.

This ambiguity also surfaces in the third work, an episode of Ten huize van from 1971 devoted to Boon, just as he was about to publish his novel Pieter Daens. Three presenters interview Boon extensively about his life and work, while also offering a close look at the author’s home. We see Boon sometimes sincerely, sometimes jokingly struggling with the demands of the new format, while his grandson David is stealing the show. The result is a fascinating portrait of the established Boon, only eight years before his untimely death.

• Program by Flemish Review de la Poëzie
• Introduction by editor and poet Benjamin De Roover

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