Willem Roggeman

Brussels-born Willem Roggeman attended the Etterbeek Royal Atheneum and then studied economics at Ghent University. His journalistic career began in 1959 when he became cultural editor of Het Laatste Nieuws, where he published articles on literature, visual arts and jazz. Between 1981 and 1993 he was deputy director and acting director of the Flemish Cultural Centre De Brakke Grond in Amsterdam, where he organized exhibitions of important Flemish artists and literary evenings with Flemish and Dutch authors. From 1982 to 1989, and again from 2006, he served as president of the Louis Paul Boon Society. He has also worked on the editorial boards of the literary magazines Diagram (1963-1964), Kentering (1966-1976), De Vlaamse Gids (1970-1992), Atlantis (2001-2002) and Boelvaar Poef (since 2006). In 1988 he was awarded the Order of Leopold II for his cultural work.

Roggeman received his first poetry award when he was 21 and a number of others have followed. His poetry up to 1985 was collected in Memoires and a further comprehensive selection appeared in De tijd hapert in de spiegel (2000). His poetry has been widely translated and he is a regular guest at international poetry festivals. He has also published two novels as well as several collections of articles on artists and highly regarded interviews with writers.[1]

• Le Rêve du robot, 1976, Bruxelles, tr. Jeanne Buytaert, illustration by Serge Vandercam, [French]
• Le travail du poète 1979, Bruxelles, tr. Jeanne Buytaert, illustration by Jacky Duyck [French]
• Die Arbeit des Dichters, 1982 Basel, tr. Heinz Schneeweiss [German]
• The Revolution Begins in Bruges, 1983 Windsor, Ontario, tr. Dorothy Howard, Hendrika Ruger, [English]
• A Vanishing Emptiness, selected poems, London 1989, ed. Yann Lovelock, illustrations by Pol Mara [English]
• Cruth an Daonnai, de vorm van een mens, Dublin 1990, selected poems by Willem M. Roggeman, translated into Irish by Gabriel Rosenstock [Irish]
• L' invenzione della tenerezza, Faenza 1995, tr. Giovanni Nadiani [Italian]
• Die Erfindung der Zärtlichkeit, Münster 1996, tr. Hienz Schneeweiss [German]
• L’invention de la tendresse, Marseille 1997, tr. Evelyne Wilwerth, illustration by Mireille Ayakaluka [French]
• L’utilité de la poésie, B-4540 Amay 2003, tr. Evelyne Wilwerth
• L' utile della poesia, Faenza 2004, tr. Giovanni Nadiani [Italian]
• Les métamorphoses du poète, B-4540 Amay 2006, tr. Elisabeth Gerlache [French]
• Blue Notebook : Poesie in jazz, Faenza, 2007, tr. Giovanni Nadiani [Italian]
• A Splendid View on Words, 2010 Demer Press, Belgium, ed. Roy Eales [English], ill. Marc Mendelson[3]
• Hôtel Mélancolie B-4540 Amay 2010, poetry and theatre [French]
• Poems and Portraits, 2012 tr. Dmitri Silvestrov, Moscow [Russian]

1963: Dirk Martens Prize of the city of Aalst for the poetry collection Baudelaire verliefd.

1974: The Louis Paul Boon Prize

1975: Prize of the city of Brussels for Sneeuwblindheid.

1997: Premio Internazionale di Poesia Riccardo Marchi Torre for the poetry collection L'Invenzione della tenerezza

2007: Premio Tratti for the Italian translation of Blue Notebook

2010: Zeist (NL) Literature Prize for his poem Lichaamstaal

2012: Dilbeek Culture Prize, in conjunction with the publication of Hier wonen de wolken

• Flemish literature

See also:

• Winkler Prins Lexicon van de Nederlandse Letterkunde (1986)
• Willem Roggeman
• Kunstbus