Ivo Michiels
Ivo Michiels, Henri actually Ceuppens ( born January 8, 1923 in Mortsel, Belgium; † 7 October 2012 in Le Barroux, France), was a Belgian writer, screenwriter and film director.
Life and work
Ivo Michiels, who was born in 1923 when Henri Ceuppens, worked during the Second World War as a nurse in a hospital in Lübeck. Later he was a laboratory assistant and from 1948 to 1957 he was a journalist at Het Handelsblad. From 1957 to 1978 he was the publisher Ontwikkeling. Parallel to this, he worked from 1959 to 1983 as an editor at Nieuw Vlaams Tijdschrift and taught from 1966 to 1978 at the Royal Institute voor Hoger Toneel -en Cultuurspreiding in Brussels. He was an honorary member of the Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal -en Letterkunde and 1993 he received an honorary doctorate from the Catholic University of Brussels. He was also honorary doctorates from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
In 1946 he published under the pseudonym Ivo Michiels verten with Begrensde his first volume of poetry. His first novel Het vonnis appeared three years later. He wrote his books in Dutch. He had his first major success with its symbolic- existentialist novel Het Afscheid, which appeared in 1957 and was moved under the title Farewell 1960 in Germany. The story is about a sailor who must be separated repeatedly from his wife, was his first step towards the experimental prose. For this book, he was in 1958 awarded the Arkprijs van het Vrije Woord. Another major success was his Alpha - cycle his novels Het boek alfa ( 1963), Orchis militaris (1968 ), Exit (1971 ), Samuel, o Samuel includes (1973) and Dixi (t) ( 1979). In Germany the first two novels were under the titles The Book Alpha (1965, translated by Georg Hermanowski ) and Orchis militaris: A report published (1969 ) by Suhrkamp Verlag.
In addition to his writing worked Michiels also sporadically in film. He wrote several screenplays and directed two films in 1955. His directorial debut Meeuwen sterven in de haven been performed at the International Film Festival of Cannes 1956.
On October 7, 2012 Michiels died at his home in Le Barroux. Since 1979 he has lived in the department of Vaucluse. His last novel, Maya Maya will be released in January 2013.