Pierre Mertens is a Belgian French-speaking writer and lawyer who specializes in international law, director of the Centre de sociologie de la litt�rature at the Universit� Libre de Bruxelles, and literary critic with the newspaper Le Soir. Influenced by Franz Kafka, Mertens started to publish novels and short stories in 1969 and received the Prix M�dicis in 1987 for Les �blouissements. He nevertheless continued his activities as a lawyer, participating in many battles for human rights. In 1989, he entered the Acad�mie royale de langue et litt�rature de Belgique, and was also named Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France. Mertens has reflected much on the social function of the writer. For him, private life, fiction, and history are inseparable. Thus he grants a central place to the memory in the creation of his works. To him the novelist finds his inspiration in their personal and the historical past. Mertens is particularly marked by the activities of his parents, his father a journalist and music lover and his mother a biologist and pianist. [More at Wikipedia]

October 9th, 1939 in Brussels (Age 84)