Paul van Ostaijen

Born in Antwerp on February 22, 1896, Paul van Ostaijen became one of the key innovators of 20th-century Dutch-language literature. He worked across poetry, prose, and criticism, and his writing was shaped by the artistic upheavals of his time, especially modernism, expressionism, and later dadaist experiment.

His poetry changed quickly and dramatically over a short life. Early work moved toward a more openly experimental style, and his years in Berlin after the First World War proved especially important: there he absorbed new artistic ideas and pushed language, sound, and page layout in daring directions. He is often remembered not only for what he wrote, but for the way he made poems look and move on the page.

Van Ostaijen died on March 18, 1928, in Anthée, Belgium. Even with a small body of work, he had an outsized influence on Belgian and Dutch literature, and he remains one of the most admired and recognizable poets in Flanders.