Les malédictions d'André Baillon

The object of this article is the literary "curse" of the Belgian francophone writer André Baillon, in the sense intended by Pascal Brissette, namely as the "mise en discours [des] malheurs par les malheureux", comme une "souffrance […] qui nourrit à la fois le travail littéraire et la mise en scène du "moi écrivant" (La malédiction littéraire, 2005). It is a question of measuring the weight of biographical misfortune in Baillon's works and, in return, the impact of written misfortune on his career as a writer. We will see that the Belgian novelist has been able to benefit, both in his works and in his life, from a suffering which is mainly related to the difficulty of writing and being appreciated by his peers. This misfortune seems to connect all the others, like a red thread running through the majority of the works.