Early years Jean-Claude Pirotte was born in
Namur a couple of months after the
German army had
invaded and occupied Belgium. He grew up in nearby
Gembloux. Both his parents were language teachers. During the
Second World War his father worked with the
Resistance, but Jean-Claude found him cold and "military" towards his own family. Pirotte later said he had hated his father: sources record a "tormented" childhood.
First career choice Pirotte's first "official" publication was of a book of poetry entitled 'Goût de cendre' (
Taste of cinders), published in 1963. Contrary to the expectations of some who knew him at the time, he studied law, however, and pursued a lucrative career as a lawyer between 1964 and 1975, practicing as a successful advocate at the
Namur Bar. He was excluded from the legal profession in 1975 because of an offence alleged, and which he would always deny, that he had assisted the escape from prison of one of his clients. Pirotte was also condemned to an eighteen-month prison term. However, rather than staying to argue his case with the judges he took an opportunity to step into his red
MG and escape to France, Instead of the law, he devoted the balance of his life to literature and poetry, publishing nearly fifty books, substantial articles, and poems. He was also a painter and applied this talent to illustrating several books.
Growing public profile Commentators on French language Belgian literature started to notice Pirotte towards the end of the 1980s. His novel "Sarah feuille morte" (1989) drew attention, as did "La pluie à Rethel", a novel originally published in 1982 and then reissued in 2001 and again in 2002. Pirotte was a lover of literature in both French and Flemish/Dutch. An eloquent admirer of writers such as
André Dhôtel,
Georges Bernanos,
Guido Gezelle,
Frederik van Eeden,
Georges Rodenbach or
Jacques Chardonne, Pirotte himself became a member of his generation's literary elite.
Final decades Between 1998 and 2002 Pirotte settled near
Carcassonne, where he created a literary prize named after the wines of his
adopted region, "prix littéraire Cabardès". As a further tribute to the locality he became the "director" of a literary series entitled "Lettres du Cabardès" which was produced by the publishing house
Le Temps qu'il fait. During his later years Pirotte lived with the translator and fellow author Sylvie Doizelet in the
French Jura, till 2009 at
Arbois, and subsequently
across the frontier, at
Beurnevésin. By this time Jean-Claude Pirotte was cursed with cancer, from which he died in the summer of 2014. ==Recognition==