Minne, Richard 1891–1965

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Minne, Richard 1891–1965

PERSONAL: Born November 30, 1891, in Ghent, Belgium; died July 1, 1965, in Saint-Martens-Latem, Belgium.

CAREER: Poet and prose writer.

WRITINGS:

In den zoeten inval, Herreman (Brussels, Belgium), 1927.

Heineke vos in zijn biograaf (novel), Nijgh & Van Ditmar (Rotterdam, Netherlands), 1933.

(With Raymond Herreman) Album, 1944, Manteau (Brussels, Belgium), 1944.

(With Raymond Herreman and Maurice Roelants) Wolfijzers en schietgeweren: een nieuwe verzameling verzen (poems), Manteau (Brussels, Belgium), 1947.

In twintig lijnen, G. A. van Oorschot (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1955.

(With Cyriël Buysse) Cyriël Buysse, Manteau (Brussels, Belgium), 1959.

Malve en erica, Heideland (Hasselt, Belgium), 1967.

Verzamelde verhalen (short stories), G. A. van Oorschot (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1995.

(With Frits Van den Berghe) Een tong van lijntses: geannoteerde leeseditie van de Brieven van Pierken (1931–1935), Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Tall (Gent, Netherlands), 2002.

Gedichten (poems), Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Tall (Gent, Netherlands), 2003.

Also contributor to Belgian newspapers.

SIDELIGHTS: The work of Belgian poet and journalist Richard Minne, although out of print for many years, received renewed attention in the 1990s with the publication of new editions of his collected works. In the opinion of Ludo Stynen in World Literature Today, this attention is fully justified, and critical reevaluation has shown Minne to be an outstanding writer of essays, poems, and fiction. Several critics note that Minne's work resembles that of his friend, noted twentieth-century Dutch novelist Louis Paul Boon.

In his youth, Minne espoused socialist ideals and wrote for leftist newspapers, but by 1917 his disappointment with the Belgian Labor Party led him to a more cynical outlook regarding politics. Stynen noted that this shift brought "irony, parody, allegory, and understatement" into Minne's work. Later into his career, Minne developed a more naturalistic approach and an increasingly somber tone.