Education
Free University of Brussels.
Free University of Brussels.
He nevertheless continued his activities as a lawyer, participating in many battles for human rights. In 1989, he entered the Académie royale de langue et littérature 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
Foreign him, private life, fiction, and history are inseparable.
To him the novelist finds his inspiration in their personal and the historical past He was also much affected by the German occupation, the execution of the Rosenbergs or the tragedy of the miners of Marcinelle in 1956.
Later as a scholar of international law he strongly denounces the genocide in Biafra, torture in Ireland, and the prisons of Pinochet. Another important inspiration is music
In his novels, one finds the influence of music, such as the leitmotifs which cross them (the figure of the tiger, for example).
He is also the author of a booklet on opera, Louisiana passion de Gilles (1982). His many travels and his extensive education has given him an international perspective. In Les Bons offices (1974) and Terre d"asile (1978), for example, Belgian history is presented from a foreign perspective.
Mertens often sees his country as a synthesis of Europe and its problems.
He caused a major controversy in his homeland with his book Une paix royale, published in 1995, which tells a fictionalised story of Belgium"s royal family, mixing fiction and reality. He was tried and forced to remove a couple of pages from the subsequent editions.
Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique.