Belgian Writer Who Splashed On The Scene After WWII Dies In Reston

This obituary was submitted to Patch by the family of Claude Krijgelmans.

RESTON, VA — Claude Krijgelmans, Belgian postmodern Flemish writer, died in his sleep on Dec. 5, 2022, at his home in Reston. He was 88.

Known for illustrative prose and experimental language, producing his first book at 19, Krijgelmans published some 16 works. As one of the first Belgian writers to publish in Dutch, rather than French, after World War II, he made literary history. While his unique language and comic yet stark landscapes were not for general audiences —"Chipped Tooth” and Shrapnel Girl,” for example — he could wax lyrical, as in “Homunculi”: “Saying, the child, Eating, working …listening, singing … then, Living, loving, singing … dying."

A strident opponent of nationalism, since a boy growing up in Aalst under Nazi occupation, he never lost fear of the war’s horror, especially what happened to Jews who worked in his mother’s lingerie factory. Hiding his older brother who escaped a forced labor camp taught him to be wary of flag wavers. Even after coming to Virginia and settling down with his foreign service officer mate in 1997, he predicted the rise of extremism in America and since 2016, compared the rise of fascism to memories of Hitler.

Though in recent years he spoke of the simpler time at his home in a part of Belgium considered Flemish in the language-divided country — where he frolicked in the town square café near the shop with the Rubens painting, when there were no cars, and he rode the train to Brussels to hear jazz greats — he never called himself Flemish. He preferred to recall his life in cosmopolitan Brussels, where he didn’t shy away from speaking French.

In addition to his wife Judith Mudd-Krijgelmans of Reston since 1982, Krijgelmans is survived by sons Eli and Johan and granddaughter Silke Krygelmans; stepdaughter Rekha Kaula, step-grandson Jon-Mingus and step-great-granddaughter Marlee Horton. Family bade farewell to him at a private ceremony in Chantilly, Virginia, on Dec. 8. A memorial will be held in Belgium in 2023