There's a particular kind of writer who seems to exist specifically to make the literary establishment uncomfortable. Herman Brusselmans is that writer for Belgium — a figure who has spent decades cultivating an image as the enfant terrible of Flemish literature, except he's now well past the age where that label should technically apply.
What makes Brusselmans interesting isn't just his output — and the output is staggering, with over 70 books to his name — but the way he's managed to remain culturally relevant in a landscape that has largely moved past the idea of the literary provocateur. He still writes columns. He still appears on television. He still says things that generate headlines and social media outrage. And somehow, he still sells books.
The Art of Being Difficult
Brusselmans emerged in the 1980s as part of a generation of Flemish writers who rejected the solemnity that had characterized Dutch-language literature. His early work was raw, deliberately crude, and deeply autobiographical — often blurring the line between fiction and confession in ways that made readers and critics equally uneasy.
His novel Exile and the books that followed established a pattern that would define his career: a narrator who is clearly a version of Brusselmans himself, navigating a world filled with sexual frustration, absurd humor, and a persistent refusal to take anything — including himself — too seriously.
This approach earned him comparisons to Charles Bukowski, which Brusselmans has neither fully embraced nor rejected. The comparison works on a surface level — both writers deal in the currency of male vulnerability wrapped in profanity — but it undersells what Brusselmans actually does. Beneath the provocations lies a genuine preoccupation with loneliness, aging, and the small humiliations that define ordinary life.
Television, Columns, and the Public Persona
In Belgium and the Netherlands, Brusselmans is arguably as famous for his television appearances as for his novels. He's become a fixture on talk shows, where his willingness to say outrageous things has made him both a booker's dream and a publicist's nightmare.
His weekly columns in Flemish newspapers have been running for years, offering commentary that ranges from genuinely insightful to deliberately inflammatory. The columns function as a kind of ongoing performance art — Brusselmans playing the role of the cantankerous intellectual who has opinions about everything and regret about nothing.
This public persona raises an interesting question about authenticity. How much of Brusselmans is real, and how much is a character he's been refining for four decades? The answer probably matters less than you'd think. What matters is that the persona works — it keeps people reading, keeps people talking, and keeps the books on shelves.
The Serious Business of Not Being Serious
One of the persistent misunderstandings about Brusselmans is that he's simply a shock merchant — a writer who uses vulgarity and controversy as substitutes for talent. This reading misses the craft involved.
His sentences, even at their most outrageous, are carefully constructed. His humor, even at its crudest, serves a purpose. And his autobiographical narratives, even at their most self-deprecating, reveal something true about the experience of being a flawed person in a world that pretends to value perfection.
His 2014 novel The Man Who Nothing Worked won the Libris Literature Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the Dutch-speaking world. The recognition was significant — not because Brusselmans needed validation, but because it forced the literary establishment to formally acknowledge what his readers had known for years: beneath the chaos, there's a serious writer at work.
Why He Still Matters
Literary provocateurs have a shelf life. Most burn out, mellow out, or simply fade into irrelevance as tastes change and new voices emerge. Brusselmans has avoided this fate through a combination of productivity, self-awareness, and a genuine connection with his readership.
He writes about getting older, about losing people, about the gap between who you wanted to become and who you actually became. These aren't revolutionary themes, but Brusselmans approaches them with a directness that cuts through the sentimentality that often plagues literary fiction about aging.
There's also something refreshing about a writer who hasn't softened his edges to court mainstream acceptance. In an era where public figures are carefully managed and brands are meticulously curated, Brusselmans remains stubbornly, sometimes frustratingly, himself.
Whether that makes him a hero of authenticity or simply a man who never learned to read the room depends on your perspective. Either way, he's still writing, still talking, still making people uncomfortable — and in a literary landscape that often feels sanitized and safe, that's worth something.