Werner Lambersy

Werner Lambersy lives and works in Paris (France), where he is in charge of promoting the French literature of Belgium. He is primarily a pœt, one of the foremost in French-speaking Belgium today. While ranging in tone and form from the utterly spare to the full and ample, his pœtry—of which about 40 volumes have been published—spins out one continuous meditation on self-effacement through love (from the carnal to the mystic) and through writing. His major book so far, Maîtres et maisons de thé (Masters and Tea Houses, 1979), is widely regarded as one of the great achievements in post-war French pœtry for its splendid imagery and sustained profundity of vision. Another of his books, Quoique mon cœur en gronde… (1985) is available in a bilingual edition in Canada under the title Despite my Growling Heart (Guernica 1990, with a translation by Daniel De Bruycker).