- Has two sons; Thomas Pieter Achilles Claus (b. 1963) from his marriage with Elly Claus, and Arthur Kristel (b. 1975) from his relationship with Sylvia Kristel.
- He spent much of his childhood in strict Catholic boarding schools, where he was a rebellious student.
- He was an artist, poet, playwright and novelist. His books dealt with repression and hypocrisy in bourgeois society in his native northern Belgium (Flanders).
- After World War II, he left home and held menial jobs before his literary talent was recognized.
- He had an ambivalent relationship with his native country, and spent time living in the Netherlands, France, and Greece.
- Most prolific in literary endeavors as a dramatist, Claus wrote 35 original pieces and 31 translations from English, Greek, Latin, French and Spanish plays and novels.
- Claus directed seven films between 1964 and 2001. His film Het sacrament was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.
- Hugo Claus' name had been put forward many times for the Nobel Prize in literature, on which he would casually comment "this prize money would suit me fine".
- He lived in Paris from 1950 until 1952, where he met many of the members of the CoBrA art movement.
- In his Faulknerian novels, Claus mixes expertly crafted stories of post-war Flanders with poignant character portraits and telltale allusions to Greek and Christian mythology.
- From February 1953 until the beginning of 1955, Hugo Claus lived in Italy where his girlfriend Elly Overzier (born in 1928) acted in a few films. They were married on 26 May 1955, and had a son, Thomas, on 7 October 1963.
- In the early 1970s, he had an affair with actress Sylvia Kristel, who was 23 years younger, with whom he had a son, Arthur, in 1975. They lived in Amsterdam. The relationship ended in 1977, when she left him for actor Ian McShane.
- Hugo Claus was educated at a boarding school led by nuns in Aalbeke and experienced the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. The experience was formative, and would later be adapted by Claus into his semi-autobiographical The Sorrow of Belgium (1983).
- Although Claus is a stirring eclectic who displays a masterful variety of genre and style in all his activities, the basic theme of his work is clearly the urge for freedom, which must be fought for in family, church and society.
- Claus published the novel Schola Nostra (1971) under the pseudonym Dorothea Van Male. He also used the pseudonyms Jan Hyoens and Thea Streiner.
- His dramatic sketch Masscheroen was first staged at Knokke Casino and featured an all-nude cast: three naked men were given the task of portraying the Christian Holy Trinity of God the father, God the son, and the Holy Spirit; the work also made light of the Holy Virgin, a Belgian saint, and the Three Wise Men. Attacked as blasphemous and deleterious to the public's moral well-being, the light-hearted play's performance triggered a notable legal case in which Claus was prosecuted: convicted on charges of public indecency, Claus was ordered to pay a ten-thousand-Belgian franc fine and serve a four-month prison sentence. The prison term was reduced to a suspended sentence after a public outcry.
- His death by euthanasia has received criticism from the Roman Catholic Church and the Belgian Alzheimer League. The Roman Catholic Church criticized the media coverage; Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels referred to Claus' euthanasia in his Easter Homily.
- He was a "contrarian", of "anarchist spirit". Journalist Guy Duplat recalls that Claus had organized in Knokke the election of a "Miss Knokke Festival", which was a typical beauty contest, except for the Claus ruling that the members of the all-male jury would have to be naked.
- Claus' literary contributions spanned the genres of drama, the novel, and poetry; he also left a legacy as a painter and film director.
- Claus has received more than fifty prizes, including seven Belgian or Flemish National Awards, several Dutch awards, he also received the Belgian-Dutch Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren (1986), the most important literary prize for a Dutch writing author. International prizes include the Prix Lugné-Poë (1955), the Ford Foundation Grant (1959), the Prix International Pier Paolo Pasolini (1997), the Aristeion Literature Prize (1998), the Premio Nonino (2000) and the Preis für Europäische Poesie (2001).
- He wrote primarily in Dutch, although he also wrote some poetry in English.
- Hugo Claus was considered to be one of the most important contemporary Belgian authors. The 1962 De verwondering (The Astonishment) and the 1983 Het verdriet van België (The Sorrow of Belgium) rank among Claus' most significant works as a novelist.
- A sympathizer of the political left at a more mature period in his life, Claus lauded the socialist model after a visit to Cuba in the 1960s.
- Claus also wrote the script of a satirical comic strip, "De Avonturen van Belgman" ("The Adventures of Belgian Man") in 1967, which spoofed the Belgian bi-lingual troubles. The strip itself was drawn by artist Hugoké (Hugo de Kempeneer).
- Many of Claus' teachers were Flemish nationalists who were sympathetic to fascism, and Claus joined the pro-German youth wing of the Flemish National Union. His father was also briefly detained after the Liberation for collaborationism.
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