Cyriel Buysse

Cyrillus Gustave Emile "Cyriel" Buysse (pronounced [siˈril ˈbœysə]; 20 September 1859 – 25 July 1932) was a Flemish naturalist author and playwright. He also wrote under the following pseudonyms: Louis Bonheyden, Prosper Van Hove and Robert Palmer. Buysse was born on 20 September 1859 in Nevele, Belgium in a well-to-do family. Before he could complete his studies at the Atheneum in Ghent, he joined the family's chicory factory at the request of his father.

At the suggestion of his aunt Virginie Loveling, herself an author, he started writing when he was twenty-six. When his father found out that he was dating a girl he had met in a local bar, he was told to leave the ancestral home. Between 1886 and 1896 he emigrated to the United States several times, but he returned more disillusioned each time. The written account of his travels is known as Twee Herinneringen uit Amerika (Two memories from America), written in 1888.

Buysse became known as a naturalist writer in the tradition of Stijn Streuvels, Émile Zola and Guy de Maupassant. Although he had been educated in French, which was common for sons of wealthy Flemish families in that era, most of his work would be in Dutch. His writing is characterised by a deep sympathy for the common man, whose life he vividly and realistically describes.

In 1893 he co-edited the literary periodical Van Nu en Straks (On Now and Soon) together with Prosper Van Langendonck, August Vermeylen en Emmanuel De Bom, but left soon afterwards following an argument. In the same year, he wrote his first novel Het recht van den sterkste (The Law of the Jungle).

Buysse married the Dutch widow Nelly Dyserinck in 1896 and spent winters in The Hague in the Netherlands, where his son René Cyriel was born in 1897, while staying at his rural estate in Afsnee in Belgium during summer.

In 1903, he co-founded another literary magazine, Groot Nederland together with Louis Couperus en Willem Gerard van Nouhuys which he continued to edit until his death.

During the German occupation of Belgium in the first World War, Buysse remained in the Netherlands. He became an active contributor to the newspaper De Vlaamsche Stem (The Flemish Voice). In 1918, after the Armistice, he returned to Belgium where his talent was now widely recognized: he received the state prize for literature in 1921, and became a member of the Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Taal- en Letterkunde (Royal Flemish Academy of Language and Literature) in 1930. In 1932 he was ennobled by King Albert I to the rank of baron, which was then a rare honour for a writer, and ironic given the tone and subject of his books; since he died four days later he was not able to receive the appropriate letters patent and so was unable to use the title. In October 1934 his widow Nelly Dyserinck was ennobled and styled a baroness.

His naturalist play The van Paemel Family (1902) is still being performed regularly. It has also been turned into a movie in 1986.

Buysse died on 25 July 1932 in Afsnee, Belgium.