Language as craft
As a Germanist and language trainer, I’ve spent years working with language. It’s my craft, my profession, my livelihood. I was trained as a linguist — and with that, I earn my bread.
But beyond language, my great loves are philosophy and history. If language is my spouse, then philosophy and history are my mistresses. Looking back, that’s always been the case — I just see it more clearly with age.
Philosophy – Nietzsche and Feuchtersleben
In my early twenties, I wrote a book about Nietzsche. A literary youthful sin, perhaps — but one that brought me immense joy. I would never forget that experience.
In my thirties, quietly between my work as a language trainer and musician, I translated a forgotten philosophical gem from German: Zur Diätetik der Seele by Viennese physician Ernst Freiherr von Feuchtersleben.
This 18th-century work is a surprisingly timeless plea for inner resilience and harmony — a self-care guide avant la lettre, a hundred years before Freud and two hundred years before today’s wellness industry.
Feuchtersleben shows how the soul can both cause illness and be a source of healing. His observations — like the bedridden lady who could dance for hours, or the psychiatric ward that remained untouched by a flu epidemic — are as poetic as they are provocative.
That translation was more than a project. It was a meeting with a thinker who believed in authenticity, in living according to one’s nature. An ode to the human being who grows from within, without betraying themselves.
“The mind is bound to matter, but matter is just as bound to the mind.”
(Feuchtersleben)
Then came my other great love: history, especially the history of my hometown Ostend. After my grandparents passed away, I found a book while clearing out their house: Le flamand des vagues by Jan Van Dorp.
To my surprise, I discovered the incredible life story of Marinus De Boer, a fictional character growing up in 17th-century Ostend. At age eleven, he witnesses his father’s death in a brutal naval battle. He’s taken in by two privateers who teach him the trade, and watch him rise to become a feared captain. Eventually, time catches up with him, and Marinus stands on the Ostend quay, watching his three sons sail off to India under the flag of the Ostend Company.
Though Marinus is fictional, his world is not. Van Dorp’s 1948 novel is deeply rooted in historical fact.
After reading it, I knew I had to translate and revive this maritime classic. I called fellow Ostend native Sebastien Dewaele, and together we adapted the story into a well-received stage production.
“The best thing history leaves us is the enthusiasm it inspires.”
(Goethe)
And now?
Writing is my lifelong companion — a contemplative counterbalance to my active life as trainer and musician. It offers space for reflection, depth and imagination.
For the past two years, I’ve been working on a book about the saints of the Low Countries — a project where history and spirituality intersect, stretching the boundaries of the religious.
Why does Saint Christopher have a dog’s head in ancient depictions? Why does Saint Denis carry his own head? What does Saint Anthony have to do with LSD? And Saint Vitus with raves?
This book is a search for the mystical in the everyday, the fantastical in the familiar — stories for believers and non-believers alike.
Don’t expect classic hagiographies, but a contemporary look at Belgian voodoo, soulful rituals and forgotten tales — rooted in our regions, branching out across time and space.
“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how those who don’t write, compose or paint manage to escape the madness, the melancholy and the fear that are inherent to the human condition.”
(Graham Greene)