Biography

Alice Nahon was born in Antwerp on August 23, 1896. She was the third child in a family of eleven children. Her father, Gerard L. Nahon, was born in the Netherlands but had ancestors from the Huguenot community. Her mother, Julia Gijsemans, was born in Putte, a town near Mechelen, where Alice spent much of her childhood. She attended primary school at the Oude God and later studied at the School for Agriculture in Overijse, where she graduated.

When World War I began, she became a student nurse at the Stuivenberg hospital in Antwerp. After weeks of hard work, barely eighteen years old, she became sick, and doctors thought her lungs were damaged. She continued studying at the Akademie van Antwerpen and took literature classes with Pol De Mont, but in the years that followed, she spent much time in sanatoria. From 1917 to 1923, she lived at the Sint-Jozefsinstituut in Tessenderlo. The doctors there told her she had tuberculosis and that she would not live long. She became depressed and began reading her favorite poets, such as Guido Gezelle. Writing her own poems was her only comfort.

During her time in Tessenderlo, her first poems were published in Vlaamsch Leven. While staying at the Sint-Jozefsinstituut, she wrote two poetry collections: Vondelingskens (1920) and Op zachte vooizekens (1921). These works made her very popular, and over 250,000 copies were sold. Her poems showed love for nature, admiration for simple things, and sadness about her own and others’ suffering, often with religious themes. In 1920, she met Fernand Berckelaers (also known as Michel Seuphor) and Geert Pijnenburg, who started the avant-garde publication Het Overzicht. She published a poem in the first issue of this review.

Because of the support from her many admirers, she was able to see a foreign doctor. In January 1923, she left Belgium for Luzern, Switzerland. New tests showed she did not have tuberculosis but chronic bronchitis. After losing years in sanatoria, she went to Italy, where she recovered quickly. She later spent time in the Landes and Paris before returning to Antwerp for more medical treatment in The Hague and Amsterdam.

She enjoyed her freedom and traveled widely as a famous poet in Flanders and the Netherlands, making friends with many artists. In 1927, she became a town librarian in Mechelen, where she lived a relatively independent life. She also became friends with more traditional writers, such as Maurits Sabbe and Gerard Walschap.

With her poetry collection Schaduw (1928), she tried to write differently from her earlier work, but she was not successful. In 1932, she became sick again and had to leave her job as a librarian. She lived in the historic vault house of the medieval castle Cantecroy in Oude-God. Her health worsened, and she spent her final year in an apartment on the Carnotstraat (number 17) in the center of Antwerp. She became very ill in January 1933 and died on May 21, 1933, just 36 years old. Many people attended her funeral, and she was buried at the Schoonselhof Cemetery in Antwerp. In 1936, a collection of her previously unpublished poems, Maart-April, was published.